India and Saudi Arabia inked more than a dozen agreements in several key sectors, including oil and gas, defence and civil aviation, to bolster their ties as Prime Minister Narendra Modi held extensive talks with the kingdom’s top leadership during which a Strategic Partnership Council was established to coordinate on important issues.

Modi, who was on a two-day visit to the Gulf kingdom to attend the Future Investment Initiative in Riyadh, held talks with Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz and powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Relations on an upswing

India, the world’s third-largest oil consumer, imports 83 per cent of its oil needs. Saudi Arabia is its second-biggest supplier after Iraq. It sold 40.33 million tonnes of crude oil to India in 2018-19 fiscal, when the country had imported 207.3 million tonnes of oil. India buys some 200,000 tonnes of LPG every month from Saudi Arabia.

A series of drone and missile attacks on oil facilities of Saudi Aramco in Abqaiq and Khurais on September 14 caused a spike in oil prices. Notwithstanding the attacks, Saudi Arabia assured India that it was committed to meet the country’s energy security needs.

India’s relations with Saudi Arabia have been on an upswing over the past few years based on burgeoning energy ties. India’s bilateral trade with Saudi Arabia was at $27.48 billion in 2017-18, making Saudi Arabia its fourth largest trading partner.

Saudi Arabia last month said that it was looking at investing $100 billion in India in areas such as energy, refining, petrochemicals and infrastructure.

Key takeaways from Modi’s visit

The two sides signed an agreement to establish the India-Saudi Arabia Strategic Partnership Council to coordinate decisions regarding strategically important issues.

The council will be headed by Prime Minister Modi and Crown Prince Mohammed and meet every two years.

The two leaders also discussed cooperation in agriculture, oil and gas, maritime security, innovative technology, renewable energy, trade and investment.

They decided to move ahead on the ambitious west coast refinery project in Maharasthra’s Raigad, which will involve investments from Saudi oil giant Aramco, UAE’s Abu Dhabi National Oil Company and Indian public sector oil firms.

An MoU for a joint venture between Indian Oil Middle East and Saudi company Al Jeri for downstream cooperation and setting up of fuel retail business in the Gulf country was also signed. An MoU between Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserves Limited (ISPRL) and Saudi Aramco was also signed.

Saudi Arabia, known to be a key ally of Pakistan, has been siding with India in its campaign to rid the region of terrorism and pledged to extend all cooperation to effectively deal with the challenge.

The two sides reaffirmed their deep commitment to strengthen the strategic partnership envisaged in the ‘Riyadh Declaration’ of March 2010.

They agreed on the importance of bilateral engagement to promote ways to ensure the security and safety of waterways in the Indian Ocean region and the Gulf region from the threat and dangers that may affect the interests of the two countries, including their national security.

An agreement was signed on bringing coordination between e-migration systems of the two countries.

An MoU was also signed to roll out RuPay card in the Kingdom - making Saudi Arabia the third country in the Persian Gulf after the UAE and Bahrain to introduce India’s digital payment system.

The first naval exercise between the two nations will take place by the end of this year or early next year.

The two sides inked an MoU for cooperation in the area of renewable energy. They also signed agreements to increase the number of flights between the two countries to facilitate people-to-people contacts, medicine products regulation and prevention of trafficking of narcotics, among others.

Riyadh Declaration

The ‘Riyadh Declaration - A New Era of Strategic Partnership’ was signed by former prime minister Manmohan Singh and Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz on March 1, 2010.

Keeping in view the development of relations between the two countries, and the potential for their further growth, the two leaders decided to raise their cooperation to a strategic partnership covering security, economic, defence and political areas.

They reviewed the status of implementation of the Delhi Declaration signed in 2006, and expressed their satisfaction at the steady expansion of Saudi-India relations.

The Delhi Declaration was signed during the visit of King Abdullah to India in 2006 as the chief guest on Republic Day. The Delhi Declaration outlined strengthening the strategic energy partnership based on complementarity and interdependence, including meeting India’s increasing requirement of crude oil supplies and identifying and implementing specific projects for cooperation including in the areas of new and renewable energy.

Manorama Yearbook app is now available on Google Play Store and iOS App Store