About four to five agreements are slated to be signed by the two countries when the visiting Ukranian President Viktor Yanukovych meets the Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh for a delegation level talks on Monday.

Strenthening defence cooperation, nuclear safety and boosting bilateral trade are in the agenda for discussion.

Yanukovych is expected to arrive on Sunday evening.

India has already signed as many as 21 agreements with Ukraine. The last agreement we signed was on exemption of visas for diplomatic passports when the Ukrainian Foreign Minister Kirichenko had come to India in November 2011.

As there is a convergence of interests in defence and civil nuclear sectors both the countries are likely to enter into some new agreements in these areas.

Ukraine has about 15 nuclear power reactors, power plants of the VVER kind, which India has also now obtained and is going to be commissioned at Kudankulam. Though Kudankulam project is with Russian collaboration, several Ukrainian-origin technical personnel are assisting the project in Kudankulam.

In the nuclear sector both India and Ukraine have a very strong convergence of interests in terms of nuclear safety. India participated in the Kiev Summit on safe and innovative use of nuclear energy which was held in April 2011 on the 25th anniversary of the horrific Chernobyl tragedy. India announced a grant of $ 1 million to Ukraine for various activities that have been held to counter the effects of the tragedy.

There is a possibility of India and Ukraine signing an agreement on nuclear safety on Yanukovych’s visit.

India-Ukraine defence cooperation has been quite healthy. Nearly 30% of the defence industry of erstwhile Soviet Union was located in Ukraine which is why India sought Ukraine’s help in AN32 modernisation. Ship engines of the Indian Navy are being regularly sourced from Ukraine. Also India’s MiG-23 engines are being overhauled in Ukraine. Motor Sich which supplies a lot of helicopter engines to India

Ukraine is overhauling and modernizing the Indian Air Force’s AN32 fleet as per contracts signed in 2009 and at a worth about $ 520 million. There was a $ 400 million contract for what is called the life extension of the aircraft, and about $ 120 million was for engines.

The contract signed in 2009 was for 100 aircraft. Part of the aircraft are to be upgraded in Ukraine and the majority are to be done in India. As far as the first lot is concerned, the work in Ukraine is more than half way through and then the scene will shift to India where the modernization will take place. About 25 aircraft which have been upgraded. The fifth or the sixth lot is in Ukraine. The number will go up to the number 40, after which the balance work would be then done in India.

Cooperation between India and Ukraine is multi-faceted and covers a wide range of areas including political, defence, S&T, nuclear, space, economic and trade & others.

The bilateral trade turnover has increased from $138.62 million in 1992 to $ 2,865.45 million in 2011-12. Indian pharmaceutical exports to Ukraine are the largest by volume and second in terms of value ($325 million in 2011) for the past several years. India imports 25% of sunflower oil production of Ukraine, which is amongst the world's largest producers of sunflower oil.

So, there has been a substantial increase. India’s exports are about $ 490 million and these are primarily pharmaceutical products. India imports a number of commodities from Ukraine like fertilizers, iron and steel, vegetable fats and oils and so on.

A unit of the Indian Pharmaceuticals Manufacturers Association based in Kiev which has been functioning since last ten years. An Indian company called Kalpataru won a bid for putting up power transmission lines. The bid was won in 2010-11. It is an about 120 million Euro contract.

The growing economic relations between the two countries has called for an urgent relaxation in the existing visa regime. Also such a relaxed visa regime will increase the flow of tourists. The flow of Ukrainian tourists to India has increased from 9000 in 2009-10 to about 20,000 at present.