Putin and Modi discuss strategic partnership: Lavrov

SOCHI, May 22, 2018 (BSS/TASS)- Economic cooperation was in focus of Russian President Vladimir Putin's talks with visiting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday.

"They discussed the entire spectrum of our privileged strategic partnership (this is how relations between Russia and India are described).

Special attention was focused on economic cooperation. They noted stable growth in bilateral trade," he said.

According to the Russian top diplomat, the two leaders discussed possible steps to be taken to ensure the economic component of an upcoming summit to be held in India in early October.

"In this context, they hailed the successful work of a joint group of priority projects and the activities of relevant government structures working out a new mechanism, as well as a strategy of actions on trade-and-economic and investment cooperation," Lavrov said.

Apart from that, in his words, a special focus was made on the energy sector. Thus, they noted that oil exports to India in 2017 had increased by nearly ten times.

"There are serious plans for further cooperation between our oil corporations, I mean first of all, Rosneft, which has gained a stronghold on the Indian market," he said, adding that Russia's gas giant Gazprom had updated its LNG agreement with Indian partners.

Besides, Gapromneft has "interesting plans" too, he noted. Other topics included high technologies and nuclear energy, he added.