.Russia, India boost trade in Jan-June despite crisis - Putin.

MOSCOW, September 4 (Itar-Tass) - Russian-Indian trade grows almost by one third every year, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said at the talks with Indian President Pratibha Patil on Friday.

"Amid the global financial and economic crisis we even managed to
increase the turnover, which is a rather rare case during the recession,"
he said.
The main reason for such growth is "bilateral trade diversification"
due to the efforts of the two countries' foreign ministries, ambassadors
and governments.
"Our relations are also on the rise in such sensitive areas as the
military and technical cooperation," he said adding that this sector has
its own problems as it has big volumes of cooperation and a big level of
diversification.
Putin expressed confidence that at the current meeting the parties
would try to resolve these problems.
"Russian-Indian relations are special and they have been developing on
this track for many years," Putin said. "We welcome as positive the level
of relations we've reached. They are based on the coordination of
positions that coincide on many issues of the international policy."
He added that Russia and India "successfully and fruitfully work in
many leading international organizations."
Pratibha Patil said in turn that India highly appreciates strategic
partnership with Russia that is based on common interests, trust, common
vision of the world order, recognition of countries' sovereign equality
and on the principle of non-interference into other countries' domestic
affairs.
She stressed that stronger relations with Russia is one of India's
foreign policy priorities.
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