Visakhapatnam: Governor of Chelyabinsk Region in Russia, Boris Dubrovsky, on Friday said they were looking at increasing the trade between their region and India to $65 million and exploring collaborations with Andhra Pradesh. He led a 50-member delegation to Vizag and participated in a conference on exploring opportunities for cooperation bet-ween Andhra Pradesh and Chelyabinsk Region.
The delegation was interested in heavy industry, agriculture, infrastructure, technology and growth corridors of Andhra Pradesh. Chief Minister N. Ch-andrababu Naidu had met Boris Dubrovskiy during his visit to Russia’s largest industrial trade fair INNOPROM in 2016 and proposed for stronger partnership between Russia and Andhra Pradesh. The Chief Minister had invited the Gover-nor to visit Andhra Pradesh and explore mutual areas of cooperation.
“India and Russia are natural partners. I see Russia and India scaling up the volume of trade. Both will gain by promoting the International North-South Transport Corridor, which would reduce transit time by almost 40 per cent between India and Russia,” Mr Dubrovskiy said. HRD minister Ganta Srinivasa Rao said Chelyabinsk is one of the major industrial centres of Russia and Andhra Pradesh is impressed how its heavy industry has had an impressive gro-wth, especially in metallurgy and military industry.
“We hope that Chelyabinsk helps us with know-how and build similar capabilities in heavy industry in Andhra Pradesh,” he added. He urged Chelyabinsk Region to forge partnerships, alliances and explore new participatory areas of cooperation. The CEO of Andhra Pradesh Economic Development Board (APEDB), Mr J. Krishna Kishore, made a detailed presentation on investment opportunities in Andhra Pradesh.
“Andhra Pradesh and Chelyabinsk share similar synergies and linkages and are capable of transforming each other’s economies. The transformational journey of Chelyabinsk through rapid industrialisation and economic upheaval has been exemplary and Andhra Pradesh is also on a high growth trajectory,” Mr Krishna Kishore said. He added that this visit was important, as India and Russia are celebrating 70 years of diplomatic ties, and Chelyabinsk can complement Andhra Pradesh’s high growth trajectory by cooperation in manufacturing and industrialisation, especially heavy industry, metallurgy and military industry.
The conference hosted business-to-business meetings between businessmen in AP and Russian businessmen. The delegation from Chelyabinsk visited Visakhapatnam Steel Plant and will meet officials of Pharma City.
