'Russia leading force behind increasingly integrating Eurasian economic space': Krishna

New Delhi -  Asserting that Russia is today the leading force behind the increasingly integrating Eurasian economic space, External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna on Tuesday said the two  nations have agreed to jointly study a Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) with the Belarus-Kazakhstan-Russia Customs Union to forge better contacts. 

"In my discussions with Deputy Prime Minister Rogozin, we outlined the milestones that should be reached prior to the visit of Vladimir Putin, the President of the Russian Federation, to

India for the 13th India-Russia Annual Summit, later this year," said Krishna in his opening remarks at the media interaction with Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin.

"In that context, we reviewed the progress being made by the various Working Groups in the economic areas reporting to the IGC under its elaborate institutional mechanism," he added.

Krishna said he has invited Rogozin to visit New Delhi later for the full-fledged 18th Session of the IRIGC meeting.

  "We will then have the opportunity to review in detail these important areas of our cooperation and set the future course of our 'special and privileged' strategic partnership," he added.

Krishna said he had very productive discussions with Rogozin.

"We continued a conversation we started in Moscow in April this year," he added. Krishna lauded the Russian Deputy Prime Minister, saying the latter is full of fresh ideas and brings a new

energy to the relationship between the two nations. 

"We are delighted that Deputy Prime Minister Rogozin has been nominated earlier in the year to be my counterpart Co-Chair of our Inter-Governmental Commission. Mr. Rogozin is full of

fresh ideas and brings a new energy to our relationship and we value his contributions," said Krishna. 

"Today's was an inter-session meeting of the two Co-chairs of the bilateral Commission, where we focused on the economic aspects of our relationship. We also discussed cooperation in

some strategic sectors," he added. Krishna further said that he along with Rogozin exchanged constructive views on various aspects of India-Russia trade and investment cooperation.

 "We exchanged constructive views on various aspects of India-Russia trade and investment cooperation. We sought definite solutions to certain outstanding problems confronting our

business communities and explored ways to enhance our trade turnover," said Krishna.

 "We agreed to redouble our efforts to achieve the 20 billion US Dollar trade target that we have set for ourselves by 2015. The figures for the first quarter of this calendar year are

encouraging, but clearly more needs to be done," he added. Krishna said that he and the visiting Deputy Prime Minister of Russia also reviewed progress on some of our new initiatives that

we had promised to undertake since the Annual Summit in 2011.

 "They include the joint drive to harness the benefits of modernization and industrial cooperation by pooling in the vast human and scientific resources of the two countries. Both sides have

since set up a Joint Working Group on this subject and the first meeting is to take place shortly," he added.