India-Russia infra fund

*Minister Sitharaman lighting the lamp at IESS 2017.*

India and Russia are setting up a US$1 billion fund to promote mutual investments in infrastructure and technology projects.

#Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) would provide US$500 million and the other half will be accrued from the #National Investment and Infrastructure Fund.

#Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced this at the India-Russia Business Forum being held with International Engineering Sourcing Show (IESS) in Chennai on 17 March 2017.

Despite being a big ally of India, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) from Russia has remained low at $1.2 billion till date compared with the US$4.9 billion Indian investment in Russia, mostly in the energy sector.

India has also asked Russia to adopt a liberal approach in sharing technology for components of major defence assets as most of its weapons systems are of Russian-origin. fii-news.com