Saudi Arabia is a reliable source of India's energy needs: PM Modi

"I believe that Asian powers like India and Saudi Arabia share similar security concerns in their neighborhood. In that respect, I am happy that our cooperation, particularly in the field of counterterrorism, security and strategic issues, is progressing very well," the Prime Minister told Arab News in an interview on Tuesday.

In this connection, he said National Security Adviser(NSA) Ajit Doval recently had a very productive visit to Riyadh.

Speaking about the existing defence cooperation between the Arab kingdom and India, the Prime Minister told Arab News," We have a Joint Committee on Defense Cooperation that holds regular meetings. We have identified a number of areas of mutual interest and cooperation in the field of defense and security."

He said the two nations were "also in the process of entering into agreements on security cooperation, collaboration in defense industries, and also agreed to hold a comprehensive security dialogue mechanism between the two countries".

Stressing on his government's "Neighbourhood First" principle, Modi said, the agreement on Strategic Partnership Council between Saudi Arabia and India would open a new era of cooperation across sectors.

In the interview, Modi said India and Saudi Arabia were working together to reduce inequality and promote sustainable development within the G20 while pointing out that "economic uncertainty is an offshoot of unbalanced multilateral trade systems".

He said India imported 18 percent of its crude oil from and considered Saudi Arabia as an important and reliable source of the country's energy needs and added that this relationship was going to change "from a purely buyer-seller relationship" to a "closer strategic partnership".

"From a purely buyer-seller relationship, we are now moving toward a closer strategic partnership that will include Saudi investments in downstream oil and gas projects," he said.

"Saudi Aramco is participating in a major refinery and petrochemical project on India’s west coast. We are also looking forward to the participation of Aramco in India’s Strategic Petroleum Reserves," he added.

On participation of Saudi companies in building smart cities in India, Modi said investment in Indian infrastructure projects was one of the biggest areas of cooperation between the two countries.

"During his visit to India in February 2019, the crown prince Mohammed bin Salman had indicated an intent to invest in excess of $100 billion in India across various sectors,' he said and also invited Saudi investment in the National Investment and Infrastructure Fund.

Asked about the other sectors where the two Asian powers could cooperate the Prime Minister mentioned the launch of RuPay and integration of the e-Migrate and e-Thawtheeq portals as well as cross-training of diplomats.

"Other major initiatives include the proposal to launch the RuPay card in the Kingdom, which will facilitate payments and remittances by the Indian diaspora; integration of the e-Migrate and e-Thawtheeq portals, which will facilitate the process of migration of Indian labor into the Kingdom; and an agreement on training diplomats in our respective academies,"he told Arab News.

On further cooperation, he said, "India is known for its world-class capacity-building centers, and there are many initiatives to provide training to the Saudi youth in different fields. We are also discussing mutual cooperation in the field of space research."