Pm Modi Meets Saudi Crown Prince; Investments, Oil Supply Discussed

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

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

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Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman meets Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Buenos Aires. (Reuters)

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, PM Modi has sought to expand ties with Saudi Arabia and other Islamic nations to deny Pakistan an advantage and to leverage India's fast-growing economy as an attractive investment.

Stable oil
The meeting with the Saudi crown prince was PM Modi's first in a set of "bilaterals" on the sidelines of the G20 that will be followed by meetings with US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

"We expect that in the next two to three years there will be significant scaling up of Saudi investments in India," Mr Gokhale said. The two leaders also talked about cooperation in arms manufacturing and Saudi Arabia's efforts to develop a domestic arms industry, SPA said.

PM Modi stressed the importance of stable energy prices and the two leaders discussed ways in which Saudi Arabia, a top crude oil supplier, could help stabilise prices, particularly for India, Mr Gokhale said.

India, the world's third-biggest oil importer, has been grappling with a combination of soaring prices and a falling currency, which makes imports of dollar-denominated oil more expensive, until a recent fall in oil prices.
Saudi Arabia has told India it is committed to meeting its rising oil demand and is the "shock absorber" for supply disruptions in the oil market.

The crown prince also discussed with PM Modi Saudi oil giant Aramco's investment in refineries in India, including the company's project to build a large refinery on the western coast, SPA said.

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