• Princess Astrid of Belgium led an Economic Mission to India from March 1 to 8. 

• This is the second such Economic Mission to India led by Astrid. 

• The Economic Mission consisted of over 325 Belgian delegates comprising key CEOs, senior leadership from Belgian businesses, academic representatives as well as high-ranking officials of the country.

• Astrid called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. They agreed to work closely to discover new pathways for cooperation across emerging and high-impact sectors, strengthen economic resilience, foster innovation-led growth, and deepen bilateral cooperation to benefit the people of the two countries.

• Astrid also held meetings with Minister of External Affairs S. Jaishankar, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Commerce and Industries Minister Piyush Goyal, and Minister for Electronics and Information Technology Shri Ashwini Vaishnav.

• In addition, a number of B2B meetings, visits to important Belgium investments, seminars on diverse topics like water, women entrepreneurship, strengthening of defence ties, sustainable infrastructure, astronomy, healthcare, education, green hydrogen and logistics, were organised during the visit.

• As part of the Economic Mission, over 35 business and academic collaboration agreements were signed in diverse areas like green technology, healthcare, defence, food processing, ports and education.

India-Belgium Relations

• Belgium was among the first European countries to establish diplomatic relations with independent India in September 1947. 

• India and Belgium share close ties underpinned by strong mutual interests in trade & investment. The bilateral trade between the two amounted to over $15 billion in 2023-24, making Belgium fifth largest trading partner of India in the EU. 

• Trade in diamonds dominates bilateral trade.

• There are over 175 Belgian companies present in India with cumulative investments from Belgium amounting to $4 billion. 

• Several Indian companies, particularly in the IT and software sectors, such as TCS, Infosys, Tech Mahindra, HCL, etc have established base in Belgium to cater to the Belgian as well as European markets.

• According to the latest estimates, there are over 24,000 members of the Indian diaspora in Belgium.

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