Russia is eager to invest in and expand the manufacturing of trains and their components in India to meet its domestic requirements, a senior railway ministry official said on Tuesday. Last week, Russian railway major TMH had expressed interest in this plan.

In response to a question on Russian investment in the railway sector in India, a top govt official said, “They have huge domestic requirements and for that they want to set up manufacturing facilities here. They want to get these supplies from India.”

The CEO of TMH, 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, which are capable of providing certain components and we think some of them can be supplied to the Russian market as well.”

Mentioning that Russia currently has several supply contracts from India, Lipa said, “We have a historically good relationship with suppliers there (India) and that means we can increase this import into Russia from India.”

TMH is the major stakeholder in Kinet Railway Solutions, which has signed approximately Rs 55,000 crore contract with Indian Railways to produce 1,920 Vande Bharat sleeper coaches and maintain them for 35 years. Lipa said they are “not looking at getting any supply from Russia” for Vande Bharat project.

“We found basic suppliers within India or some other countries which are more or less oriented for the relationship between India and Russia,” he said while claiming that the current sanctions will not have any implications on the project.