PM meets prince, Riyadh to scale up India investments
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman have decided to set up a mechanism at the leadership level to scale up the oil-rich kingdom’s investments in energy, infrastructure and defence sectors in India as they met on the sidelines of the G-20 summit here.
During the meeting, the two leaders discussed ways to further boost economic, cultural and energy ties. “It was a cordial and warm meeting,” Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale said after the meeting in Argentina’s capital.
Prince Salman spoke of India as an important partner. There was specific discussion on How Saudi Arabia can enhance its investments across number of sector in two to three years, he said. Prince Salman said that Saudi Arabia will be finalising an initial investment into the National Infrastructure Fund.
He also referred to the future prospects for investment in the technology sector, the agriculture sector and energy sectors, Gokhale said.
The G-20 summit is the first international forum attended by the Saudi Prince since the crisis over the grisly murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2.
The Saudi insider-turnedcritic was killed in what Saudi Arabia said was a “rogue” operation and denied any involvement of Prince Salman in the murder.
“Two leaders have agreed that we will now set up a mechanism at the leadership level which will go into the possibilities of concrete actions in terms of investment, in terms of technology, in terms of manufacturing across various sectors from energy to food security and to infrastructure to defence,” Gokhale said.
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