Comments
Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be visiting India from January 14 to 19.
He will hold bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on January 15. Both sides are expected to discuss a wide range of issues covering enhanced cooperation in defence and trade.
CEOs forumAn India-Israel CEOs Forum will also to follow the bilateral meeting, the Ministry of External Affairs announced on Thursday. This will be the second such meeting of the top industry leaders from both the sides. The first CEOs forum was held during Prime Minister Modi’s visit to Tel Aviv last July.
Netanyahu, who will be accompanied by a high-powered business delegation, is expected to urge India to re-launch the negotiations for having a free trade agreement (FTA) in an effort to boost bilateral trade to $10 billion from around $5 billion at present.
Defence dealsIsrael is also likely to push for greater defence deals with India even as New Delhi recently scuttled a $500-million deal to buy ‘Spike’ anti-tank guided missiles from Rafael Advanced Defence Systems.
However, India has also approved procurement of 131 surface-to-air missiles from Israel known as ‘Barak’ , which are also made by Rafael Advanced Defence Systems that are to be used for India’s first aircraft carrier under construction.
The Israeli PM will also be addressing a business forum under the aegis of FICCI.
“The Prime Minister’s visit to India is the grand finale to the celebrations of 25 years of growing partnership between India and Israel. The visit will focus on the progress made between India and Israel since Prime Minister Modi’s visit to Israel last summer, and on shaping the next 25 years of relations between our countries and our people,” said Israel Ambassador to India Daniel Carmon.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.