New Delhi

Russian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Industry and Trade, Denis Valentinovich Manturov on Monday expressed his desire to boost trade with India in order to balance Russia's merchandise trade deficit with India.

"That's one of the issues which we just discussed with your colleague, so because of lack of input from India, it's not enough to use the Rupee so we need to boost the trade from India and then in this case we are looking at balance like for example, we have with China. We have USD 200 billion trade with China, and it's balanced," said Manturov on the India-Russia trade and payments issue.

India and Russia are discussing a free trade agreement, a move that would further deepen bilateral commercial ties that have flourished since war broke out in Ukraine.

India’s National Security Advisor Ajit Doval also met Denis Valentinovich Manturov. They discussed a range of bilateral issues to implement the India-Russia strategic partnership.

Manturov is on a two-day visit to India to co-chair the Intergovernmental Russian-Indian Commission, which is aimed at enhancing trade ties between the two countries.

On the first day of his visit, Manturov co-chaired the 24th India-Russia Inter-governmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific, Technological and Cultural Cooperation (IRIGC-TEC).

The IRIGC-TEC is the primary institutional mechanism supervising economic cooperation. It integrates six working groups on economic and trade cooperation, modernisation and industrial cooperation, energy, tourism and culture, science and technology, and IT.