Saudi crown prince meets India’s Modi in Argentina, plans to ramp up investments

NEW DELHI/ CAIRO: Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and told him about plans to scale up investments in India’s tech, farm and energy sectors, an Indian official and the Saudi news agency (SPA) said yesterday.

The two leaders, who are in Argentina for the G20 summit, met in the prince’s residence in Buenos Aires and discussed Saudi Arabia’s readiness to supply India with oil and petroleum products.

The G20 summit in Buenos Aires is the first major international event the Saudi prince has attended since the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October.

The Saudi prince told Modi he would soon be finalising an initial investment in India’s National Investment and Infrastructure Fund, a quasi-sovereign wealth fund, to help accelerate the building of ports, highways and other projects, a top Indian diplomat said.

“The crown prince also referred to future projects for investments, in sectors such as tech, energy and farm,” Indian Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale, who is accompanying Modi to the G20, said in a readout of the meeting.

Ways in which Saudi Arabia could replace its agricultural imports from other countries with Indian agricultural produce were also discussed, the Saudi news agency said.

Since he took office in 2014 at the head of a Hindu-nationalist government, Modi has sought to expand ties with Saudi Arabia and other Islamic nations to deny arch foe Pakistan an advantage and to leverage India’s fastgrowing economy as an attractive investment. — Reuters