India, Russia investors form $200m cross-border IT fund
India-listed Srei Infrastructure Finance and Russia’s state-backed Vnesheconombank have agreed to establish a $200 million fund that will promote IT and innovation exchange between the two countries.
“We will leverage the rich scientific heritage and growth potential of India and Russia,” Hemant Kanoria, chairman and managing director at Srei, said in a statement. “The fund will serve as a two-way bridge between the Indian and Russian markets and create opportunities for India-Russia cross-border technology cooperation."
Srei is one of India's largest infrastructure investment institutions with around $5.5 billion of consolidated assets under management. It has projected the infrastructure equipment industry in India to be worth $10 billion by 2020.
Vnesheconombank is the largest development bank in Russia and focuses on stimulating investment and improving competitiveness in the local economy. It plans to co-invest in about RUB1.4 trillion ($24.6 billion) of infrastructure, high technology, and downstream industrial projects by 2021.
The fund launch coincides with India officially joining the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), a Eurasian development initiative. SCO is co-led by Russia, China and a number of Central Asian nations, and is increasingly viewed as a vehicle of China’s One Belt One Road (OBOR) infrastructure agenda.
India opposes OBOR’s integration of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which it sees as infringing on a territorial dispute in the region. Earlier this year, Chinese banks led a $1.4 billion investment in a Pakistani power project that was said to be the first infrastructure deal under OBOR.
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