External Affairs Minister (EAM) S. Jaishankar with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov on Wednesday. (@DrSJaishankar X)
The two leaders met in New Delhi shortly after Lavrov arrived in the capital to attend a BRICS foreign ministers’ meeting to be held during May 14–15. Their discussions focused on different aspects of the bilateral strategic partnership and implementing the decisions made at last year’s India-Russia summit, when the two sides agreed to step up economic cooperation and boost two-way trade to $100 billion by 2030.
Jaishankar said in a social media post that his “productive exchange of views” with Lavrov touched on several aspects of the bilateral special and privileged strategic partnership, including trade, investment, energy, connectivity, technology, and facilitating the mobility of skills and talent.
Earlier, Jaishankar said in his opening remarks at the meeting that there has been steady and sustained growth in the bilateral partnership in the past few years. “Its economic and energy dimensions have become more pronounced. Our political cooperation is even more valuable in an uncertain and volatile global environment,” he said in the televised remarks.
“The mobility of talents and skills has acquired greater salience and our interest in ensuring better connectivity is deeper,” he said. “Our two nations have a shared interest in strengthening multipolarity. We also benefit through greater derisking and diversification.”
Lavrov noted that bilateral trade is currently worth almost $60 billion and said he had no doubt that the goal of increasing it to $100 billion by 2030 will be achieved. “Cooperation at all levels is based on sustained structures, which is helpful for long-term planning and achieving results,” he said.
Russia supports India’s priorities in the BRICS grouping, and cooperation between the two sides at the UN, Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and G20 is “becoming more important at a time when we have to find global answers to global problems,” Lavrov said. “The problems are not created by all of us, but to resolve them, we have to join our efforts, including in BRICS and SCO,” he added.
Jaishankar also met Brazil’s Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira and South African Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola and discussed bilateral ties and regional and global issues.
