The two countries have agreed to increase cargo turnover through the launch of new routes of the North-South International Transport Corridor, the Northern Sea Route and the Chennai-Vladivostok Sea Line, according to a joint statement released after the Modi-Putin meeting.
The INSTC is an ambitious 7,200-km-long trade corridor envisioned in 2000 to link Russia’s Baltic Sea coast to India’s western ports in the Arabian Sea through a network of sea, road and rail routes.
On the other hand, the Northern Sea Route links Russia’s Arctic ports that export goods from resource-rich Siberia to northern Pacific, and the Chennai-Vladivostok link plans to extend the supply line from Russia’s east coast to India’s southern city.
The leaders also agreed to explore possibility of a Eurasian Economic Union-India free trade pact. The EAEU is an economic union of five post-Soviet states namely, Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Armenia.
