India, Finland MoU on defence cooperation

India and Finland have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on enhancing bilateral defence cooperation, the Indian Defence Ministry said.

Defence Secretary Ajay Kumar and his Finnish counterpart, Permanent Secretary, Jukka Juusti, signed the MoU on cooperation in the field of production, procurement, research and development of defence-related equipment and industrial cooperation, on the sidelines of Raisina Dialogue 2020, an annual multilateral conference co-organized by India’s Ministry of External Affairs. Under the broad ambit of the MoU, cooperation between Finnish companies and Indian defence public sector undertakings could be explored.

In 2019, Juusti had led a delegation to Aero India in Bengaluru and shown interest in participating Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Make in India’.

Before Juusti, Finland’s Prime Minister Juha Sipila had taken part in the inauguration of the ‘Make in India’ week in 2016 with Modi. It was followed by a meeting between the two prime ministers in April 2018 in Sweden at the India-Nordic Summit.