Joys of the flesh: Russia tripled meat imports from India
According to the Ministry of Trade and Industry of India, Russia purchased $84.4 million worth of cattle meat in this country in the first 10 months of 2025, while imports amounted to about $30 million in the same period of 2024. In the same 10 months, shrimp imports from India increased by a third to $134.6 million. Details and expert assessments can be found in the Izvestia article.
A drop in the ocean?
According to estimates by analysts at the Gaidar Institute's International Trade laboratory, by the end of 2025, trade with India is at the level of $60-65 billion, with most of it coming from Russian exports (about $55-60 billion).
An increase in meat supplies does diversify imports and align the exchange structure — but only slightly and symbolically, says Vladimir Sedalishchev, an expert at the Economic Policy Foundation.
"However, this almost does not change the skewed trade balance: the bulk of trade is still formed due to Russian supplies of oil and petroleum products to India," he comments.
The bilateral trade turnover between the two countries has grown dramatically in recent years and is estimated at tens of billions of dollars, but remains one-sided in structure. In 2024, Russia exported $58 billion worth of goods to India, while importing only $5.5 billion.
However, as Sedalishchev notes, this volume is already quite comparable to the current trade with the EU.
The imbalance in bilateral trade between India and Russia creates obstacles to a full transition to settlements in national currencies.: The rupees earned need to be spent on something, says Dmitry Kuznetsov, a researcher at the Gaidar Institute's International Trade Laboratory.
"Nevertheless, the increase in trade is always gradual, and in the future we may see other positions where supplies to Russia from India will increase significantly," he says.
By itself, such an imbalance is not a problem, says Alexander Firanchuk, a leading researcher at the International Laboratory for Foreign Trade Research at the Presidential Academy.
— But in the case of India, this creates risks with calculations caused by the peculiarities of the country's currency legislation. Thus, companies are justifiably afraid of a repeat of the situation with the inability to repatriate revenue, which arose among Russian oil companies in the recent past. Although no new cases of such "freezes" of funds have been reported recently, this settlement mechanism remains the subject of business and regulatory attention, he says.
Translation difficulties
Alexander Firanchuk explains the threefold increase in meat supplies by the effect of a low base.
"By the end of 2025, the share of the Russian market in the total volume of cattle meat exports from India will be about 2% of the total volume, there are no official statistics yet," he says. — In such conditions, even a small absolute increase in supplies leads to sharp jumps in statistics on growth rates.
According to the expert, frozen meat is traded as an exchange-traded commodity, which allows relatively quick redistribution of flows from one market to another.
"It is probably this flexibility that has become one of the factors of the observed increase in supplies to Russia," he suggests.
At the same time, the expert insists that it is necessary to understand the specifics of Indian cattle meat production.
— Killing cows is prohibited for religious reasons, which, however, do not apply to buffaloes. But in the international trade classification, their meat is considered in the same category as "cattle meat", and in the public space it is often generically referred to as beef, which creates terminological confusion, he explains.
An important partnership
India is an important energy partner, and Russia is interested in expanding imports of Indian goods to reduce the imbalance.
Vladimir Sedalishchev sees the greatest prospects for cooperation in the agro-industry, pharmaceuticals, chemistry and the localization of joint ventures.
— In medicine, cooperation is developing primarily through the supply of Indian generics and primary pharmaceutical substances. There is a discussion of joint production of medicines and medical devices, but it is too early to expect quick results here," he says.
Dmitry Kuznetsov expands this list.:
— Firstly, the import of automotive components is promising for the Russian market. These are brake systems, suspension elements, drive axles, transmission units and other components. Secondly, the import of machine-building products and road construction equipment: diesel engines and their parts, excavators, loaders and bulldozers. Thirdly, purchases of electrical and electronic equipment are possible. For example, static converters, telecommunication and network equipment, and electrical control panels. Imports from India of light industry products (clothing, leather shoes, textile containers), the agri—food sector (coffee, sugar, fruits and nuts), as well as consumer chemicals, cosmetics and aromatic compositions also look promising, he lists.
Russia, in turn, is interested in increasing exports to India not only of energy resources, said Anton Sobin, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Central Asia Capital investment fund. Among the promising areas, he named the sale of Russian agricultural products, fertilizers, timber and metallurgical products, as well as high-tech equipment to India.
— High potential remains for the supply of electronics, equipment for water purification and incineration of garbage, metals, as well as engineering, consulting, educational and tourism services. And the development of cooperation in high—tech industries will also be able to give dynamics to the increase in trade turnover between our countries," sums up Sobin.
Forecasts
Considering the economic and demographic size of India, in the medium and long term, the Indian market has great potential for a wide range of Russian goods, says Vladimir Sedalishchev.
However, this will not solve the problem of imbalance, Dmitry Kuznetsov is convinced.
— Now it is difficult to imagine that India's supplies to Russia in the medium term will increase enough to balance the supply of Russian goods to India, — he says.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
