New Delhi, India – The first ever meeting of senior officials of India and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) was held in Riyadh on Monday, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs here announced.
India has been steadily stepping up institutional engagement of the GCC in addition to regular bilateral meetings with its member countries.
The Indian delegation to the meeting was led by Dr. Ausaf Sayeed, Secretary in charge of the Gulf in the Ministry of External Affairs. The GCC side was led by Dr Abdul Aziz Bin Hamad Al Owaishaq, Assistant Secretary General for Political Affairs and Negotiations in the GCC Secretariat.
The meeting was a follow-up to a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed between the two sides on a “Mechanism of Consultations” during the visit of India’s External Affairs Minister, Dr S Jaishankar, to Riyadh in September last year.
The meeting favored the early finalization of the India-GCC Free Trade Agreement (FTA) and noted with satisfaction the progress in trade and investment between India and the Gulf region.
Dr. Sayeed called for more collaborations between the two sides in renewable energy, food security, health and information technology sectors. Joint Working Groups of experts in some of these sectors will be set up.
As a trade bloc, the GCC is the largest trade partner of India with a total trade of US$154 billion during the last financial year.
India has also stepped up multi-faceted consultations with GCC states ahead of the Group of Twenty (G20) Summit to be held in New Delhi in September under its presidency.
A 12th round of India-Oman Strategic Consultative Group meeting in Muscat “reviewed bilateral ties in different domains and identified new areas of cooperation,” the Indian Ministry of External Affairs here said in a press release on March 18.
“The India-Oman Strategic Consultative Group is an important forum for both countries enabling regular review of bilateral relations. The discussions were focused on exploring avenues of cooperation in key sectors including energy, trade and investment, health, education and cultural exchanges,” the press release said.
