PrintFriendly
India-Saudi Arabia Invest Forum meets in New Delhi
At the invitation of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, the Crown Prince and Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia visited India from September 9-11, 2023. During this visit, he attended the G20 Summit continued his stay in India on September 11, 2023 for the State visit. He was accompanied by a high-level delegation, including Ministers and senior officials.
The Saudi leader was accorded a ceremonial welcome at Rashtrapati Bhavan before he and PM Shri Narendra Modi co-chaired the first meeting of the Strategic Partnership Council, the apex body to oversee bilateral ties that was set up in 2019. Both the leaders also discussed the regional and international issues of mutual interest.
Saudi Arabia is one of the most important strategic partners for India: PM Modi
At the meeting, PM Shri Modi said, “Saudi Arabia is one of the most important strategic partners for India. As the world’s two largest and fastest growing economies, our mutual cooperation is vital for the peace and stability of the entire region.”
“We together made a historic beginning to establish an economic corridor between India, West Asia and Europe,” Shri Modi said.
On the sidelines of the State Visit, Al Saud participated in the Leaders’ Summit of the bilateral Strategic Partnership Council, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, Ministry of Commerce and Industry of India and the Saudi Ministry of Investment organized an India-Saudi Arabia Investment Forum 2023 (“The Forum”) in New Delhi on 11 September.
The Forum witnessed the attendance of more than 500 companies from India and Saudi Arabia. This is the first such formal investment symposium between India and Saudi Arabia and it comes as a follow-up to the announcement made, previously, by the Saudi Crown Prince to invest approximately $100 Billion in diverse sectors of the Indian economy.
The Ministerial Session of the India-Saudi Investment Forum 2023 was co-chaired by the Union Minister of Commerce & Industry, Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution and Textiles, Shri Piyush Goyal and the Minister of Investment, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, H.E. Mr. Khalid A. Al Falih.
Jointly addressing the business gathering, the two Ministers discussed, inter-alia, ways and means of expanding bilateral collaboration in various domains including start-ups, digital infrastructure development, increasing collaboration between the business and investor ecosystems of the two countries including through closer cooperation between the Investment promotion agencies of the two countries and through setting up of investment promotion offices, encouragement of Saudi Sovereign Wealth Funds to consider direct investments into India in addition to the current inflow of investments through funds, and possibility of joint projects.
Earlier in the day, more than 45 Memorandum of Understanding (MoUs) were concluded between the two sides, in G2B and B2B formats. These MoUs are expected to further deepen the economic engagement between the two sides and are also likely to accelerate investment flows between the two sides.