Thank you very much.
Friends from the media,
Let me first of all thank Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov for a warm welcome, for his hospitality.
As he shared with you, we've had a very good session of talks, we will be carrying on after this. And I think today what clearly came out was that India-Russia relations remain very steady, remain very strong, they are based on our strategic convergence, on our geopolitical interests, and because they are mutually beneficial.
We spent a lot of time discussing political cooperation with regard to various international issues, including international organisations, BRICS, of which Russia will be the President; SCO, etc.
With regard to our bilateral relations, bilateral cooperation, yesterday, I also had a meeting with the co-chair of the India-Russia Intergovernmental Commission, Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov. And today, actually, we appreciated the fact that our trade is at an all-time high. We have crossed $50 billion turnover last year. We expect to exceed that this year. And what is important is that this trade is more balanced. It is sustainable, and it provides for fair market access. I think that was very much part of my discussions yesterday and a little bit today with Minister Lavrov as well.
Moving on from that, I would say we had today and yesterday, discussed our cooperation in relationship to the Far East, Russian Far East. We expect a delegation from the Far East to participate in an important conference in India, next month.
We discussed long-term arrangements. We are today, in our trade, energy, fertilizers, cooking coal are very big components of that. How do we reach long-term arrangements in that regard was a big part of our discussion. We discussed mutual investments, the need to progress on a bilateral investment treaty. We spoke about railways yesterday, about industrial zone infrastructure. And we have agreed that the negotiations between India and the Eurasian Economic Union for a free trade agreement will be resumed in the second half of January this year.
On energy, as I mentioned, we have today a very substantial relationship, both in terms of Indian investments in Russia, in oil and gas, which we are seeking to expand. As also in nuclear; yesterday we signed two important amendments, which will take the Kudankulam nuclear power project forward.
We also spoke about connectivity; connectivity from western India through the International North-South Transport Corridor. Also connectivity from eastern India, from Chennai to Vladivostok and the polar route. We discussed various related areas where India's polar capabilities could be enhanced in collaboration with Russia.
On civil aviation and tourism, was also a subject of discussion. We would like to see more Russian tourists in India. We have increased the number of flights from India every week, from 52 to 64. We are open to increasing it further.
We also, of course, discussed the global strategic situation, spoke about Ukraine, about Gaza, about the Indo-Pacific, about ASEAN, Afghanistan, and as I said, about UN-related matters. It's been a very, very good discussion. Minister Lavrov and I have met regularly in the course of this year. I think that's a very natural interaction between two countries, which have such a strong and close history of cooperation.
So once again, it's really been a pleasure today to be back, to sit down and discuss with you our shared concerns. And as always, as in the past, I think this has been very helpful.
Thank you.