New Delhi: While addressing the students' dialogue at the National Institute of Technology, the Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar highlighted the growth in the economic partnership between India and Russia.

He said that Russia is turning mostly towards Asia since it has a big market. Last year, he added that trade with Russia was USD 40 billion with India, far ahead of the figure before the Ukraine conflict.

While talking about Russia and India trade, Jaishankar said, "Till last year, Russia's main economic partner was the Western countries, after the Ukraine conflict that way was closed. So, Russia is turning more towards Asia...Our trade before the Ukraine conflict was around 12-14 billion dollars, our trade last year was 40 billion dollars."

EAM Jaishankar was interacting with the National Institute of Technology Students Dialogue and Beneficiaries Sammelan under BJP's Sampark Se Samarthan today.

Speaking about the growing participation of Asian economies in the world, he said, "China's the biggest Asian economy and it will show a path there. I think we should not be worried about what they are doing with other countries, we should keep our own relations going and see how the interest of Indian people is best served."

Later, the minister discussed the impact of foreign policies and said, "The decisions we make on foreign policy affect our lives every day. How much the price of petrol you pay is decided whether we do a good foreign policy or not. If we had not done a good foreign policy, your petrol price would have been much higher..."

He further added, "Today, what we do with other foreign partners actually impacts your life."

Last year, a new S&P Global Market Intelligence report stated that India has emerged as a strong trade partner of Russia and is expected to remain so in 2023.

The report highlighted the anticipated shifts in trade due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict as well as positive outlook for containerized trade in 2023 despite a mere 0.7 per cent year-on-year (y/y) growth in 2022 led by the estimated slowdown in the second half.