Strategic partnership and increasing bilateral trade will be the top-most agenda in the coming regular annual summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee in Moscow, scheduled for November 11-13, a top Russian official said here today. Vajpayee will be accompanied by a large business delegation, consisting of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and FIE, Interfax reported quoting the Indian embassy. ‘‘Relations between Russia and India are relations of strategic partnership. Commencing from the highest level, our political contacts have been developing extraordinarily,’’ First Deputy Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Trubnikov told The Indian Express, ahead of Vajpayee’s summit with Putin. India’s Ambassador to Moscow, Krishnan Raghunath, called on Deputy Foreign Minister in charge of Asian Affairs Alexander Losyukov, yesterday to give final touches to the preparation of the visit during which a number of crucial agreements are expected to be signed. The two leaders have already met twice, in St Petersburg and New York, in the run up to their Moscow summit. Trubnikov emphasized that the two countries must now pay more attention to trade and economic relations to boost the trade turnover, ‘‘objectively looking’’ at ways and means in today’s global economic conditions. ‘‘The potential of economic cooperation between the two countries is far from realized,’’ he said. The annual trade turnover between the two countries, stands at $1.2 billion, which is as much as India’s trade with Sri Lanka.
