Russia sees India as hub for train production | India News – Times of India

NEW DELHI: Russia is keen to invest in and expand production of trains and their components in India to meet domestic needs, a railway ministry official said on Tuesday. Last week, Russian railway giant TMH had expressed interest in this plan.
Replying to a question about Russian investments in India’s railway sector, a top government official said: “They have huge domestic needs and that is why they want to set up production facilities here. They want to get these supplies from India.”
TMH CEO Kirill Lipa told a group of Indian journalists at the company’s headquarters in Moscow: “The current interest rate in India is very different from other countries. So we are interested and ready to invest in India. We are interested in developing several facilities in India that can supply certain components and we believe that some of these can also be supplied to the Russian market.”
Stating that Russia currently has several supply contracts from India, Lipa said: “We have historically good ties with suppliers there (India) and that means we can increase these imports from India to Russia.”
TMH is the major stakeholder in Kinet Railway Solutions, which has signed a contract worth around Rs 55,000 crore with Indian Railways for the production of 1,920 Vande Bharat sleep coaches and maintain them for 35 years. Lipa said they “do not plan to get any offer from Russia” for the Vande Bharat project.