New Delhi, Apr 19: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will embark on a visit to Saudi Arabia next week at the invitation of Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Crown Prince and Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

According to the Ministry of External Affairs, the upcoming April 22-23 visit will be the first visit of the Prime Minister to the country in his third term.

Previously, he has travelled to the Saudi kingdom twice in 2016 and in 2019.

The visit follows the State Visit of Mohammed bin Salman to New Delhi in September 2023 to attend the G20 Summit and co-chair the first meeting of the India-Saudi Arabia Strategic Partnership Council.

India and Saudi Arabia share close and friendly ties with a long history of socio-cultural and trade contacts. As strategic partners, the two countries share strong bilateral relations across various areas, including political, defence, security, trade, investment, energy, technology, health, education, culture and people-to-people ties.

India's relations with the Kingdom have evolved into a stronger and enduring partnership in the past decade, expanding into many strategic domains, with growing investment commitments, broadening of defence cooperation and intensive high-level exchanges across sectors, the MEA statement said.

The visit of PM Modi reflects the importance India attaches to its bilateral relationship with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

It will provide an opportunity to further deepen and strengthen our multi-faceted partnership, as well as to exchange views on various regional and international issues of mutual interest, according to the MEA.

The Prime Minister's upcoming visit comes at a time when the US and Iran are holding talks with Washington seeking a deal on the latter's nuclear programme and tensions in West Asia with the Hamas-Israeli conflict.

PM Modi's visit also comes ahead of the expected visit of US President Donald Trump to Saudi Arabia next month.

India and Saudi Arabia established diplomatic relations in 1947. In 2010, the bilateral relationship was elevated to a Strategic Partnership.

There have been regular high level exchanges between India and Saudi Arabia. Beginning 2024-till date, there have been 11 Ministerial-level visits from India to Saudi Arabia from India to Saudi Arabia. Saudi Foreign Minister and Saudi Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources visited India in November 2024 and February 2025 respectively.

Saudi side extended excellent cooperation during Operation Kaveri for the evacuation of Indian citizens from Sudan via Jeddah.

Riyadh is also seat of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). India and GCC secretariat have maintained good relations and regular dialogues at official level. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar visited Riyadh in September 2024 to co-chair the first India-GCC Ministerial Meeting.

Saudi Arabia is India's fifth largest trading partner and India is Saudi Arabia's second largest trade partner. During FY 2023-24, India's imports from Saudi Arabia reached USD 31.42 billion and exports to Saudi Arabia were worth USD 11.56 billion. In 2023-24, bilateral trade stood at USD 42.98 billion, with Indian exports at USD 11.56 billion and imports at USD 31.42 billion.

Major commodities of export from India to Saudi Arabia include engineering goods, rice, petroleum products, chemicals, textiles, food products, ceramic tiles. whereas, major commodities of import for India from Saudi Arabia are crude oil, LPG, fertilizers, chemicals, plastic and products thereof etc.

Indian investment in Saudi Arabia has increased in recent years reaching approximately USD 3 billion (August 2023). The total Saudi investment in India has been about USD 10 billion. ). These investments are across diverse sectors such as management and consultancy services, construction projects, telecommunications, information technology, financial services and software development, pharmaceuticals, etc.

Saudi Arabia remained India's third largest Crude and Petroleum products sourcing destination for 2023-24. India imported 33.35 MMT of crude oil in 2023-24 from Saudi Arabia, accounting for 14.3 per cent of the India's total crude oil imports. In 2023-24, Saudi Arabia was the third largest LPG sourcing destination for India, accounting for 18.2 per cent of the total LPG imports of India for 2023-24.

Another area of partnership is the India-Saudi Arabia defence ties that have strengthened in recent years.

The first ministerial visit on the defence side in over 12 years took place when the then MoS (Defence) Ajay Bhatt visited Riyadh for the World Defence Show in February 2024.

India and Saudi Arabia enjoy extensive naval cooperation and two editions of the bilateral naval exercise, 'Al Mohed Al Hindi', have been concluded so far. Additionally, both sides have close cooperation in defence industries and capacity building.

Indian community in Saudi Arabia is 2.7 million strong and is a living bridge between the two countries. Indian diaspora contribution to the economic development of Saudi Arabia is widely recognized. Number of Indians in Saudi Arabia is increasing steadily. Over the last year, an estimated one lakh Indians came to Saudi Arabia for employment.

(ANI)

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