NEW DELHI, November 8 (RIA Novosti) - Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Sobyanin arrived in the Indian capital New Delhi on a working visit on Sunday.
Sobyanin co-chairs the Russian-Indian commission on trade, scientific and cultural cooperation. The official part of the four-day visit will begin on Monday. During the visit, Sobyanin will meet with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who is expected in Moscow in December.
Sobyanin is also expected to discuss joint efforts against terrorism and drug trafficking, as well as cooperation in international affairs with the country's foreign minister, Somanahalli Mallaiah Krishna.
Cooperation in the oil and gas sphere will be on the agenda of the Russian official's talks with Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Murli Deora.
India's state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) is currently taking part in Sakhalin-I, an oil and gas project off the coast of Russia's Pacific island of the same name. It is also the owner, via subsidiary ONGC Videsh Ltd. (OVL), of British oil company Imperial Energy, with production licenses for fields in west Siberia's Tomsk Region.
Sobyanin is also scheduled to meet with Indian minister of commerce and industry, Anand Sharma to discuss the ambitious goal of increasing bilateral trade, which is expected to total $7 billion in 2009, to $20 billion by 2015.
The Russian deputy premier will also visit the Kudankulam power plant in the southern province of Tamil Nadu.
Atomstroyexport, Russia's nuclear power equipment and service export monopoly, has been building two reactors for the plant since 2002 in line with a 1988 deal between India and the Soviet Union and an addendum signed 10 years later. The launch of the station is scheduled for the first half of 2010.
