Recently, the Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, received Prime Minister Narendra Modi to discuss and expand their strategic partnership between the two countries. That came in the regulator visit to Apulia in southern Italy by Prime Minister Modi, who thanked him for the invitation to attend the G20 Summit.
"Both leaders reaffirmed their commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific. and discussed opportunities in the context of the Indo-Pacific Ocean Initiative. Cooperation under multilateral initiatives and global forums, including the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor," said the Ministry of External Affairs in a statement on Monday from.
It is a big ticket initiative, as mentioned earlier; this will connect Saudi Arabia and India with the US and Europe through a project of a sort of an umbrella that will cover roads, railways, and shipping routes. The overall idea is visualized as a counter-weight to China's BRI.
On the sidelines of their meeting, Prime Ministers Modi and Meloni discussed bilateral trade and economic ties with particular focus on priority sectors of partnership-cooperation on clean energy, manufacturing, space, telecommunications, Artificial intelligence-AI and critical minerals. They welcomed the recent Memorandum of Understanding on Industrial Property Rights that provided an umbrella for the cooperation in Patents, Designs, Trademarks etc.
They also took stock of the progress in bilateral defence and security cooperation. They have reaffirmed their desire for further defence-industrial cooperation. The leaders have also welcomed the upcoming visit of the Italian aircraft carrier ITS Cavour and training ship ITS Vespucci to India later this year.
Reviewing the close cultural relations between their respective countries, Modi and Meloni appreciated the inaugural of first ICCR chair on India studies at the University of Milan for enhancement of the people to people links. They also had discussions on the Migration and Mobility Agreement with a purpose to facilitate the mobility between India and Italy of the Professionals, skilled workers, students and researchers.
Prime Minister Meloni had previously welcomed Prime Minister Modi and all other world leaders at her invitation for the G7 Summit held in Italy, in which issues related to artificial intelligence, energy, Africa, and the Mediterranean were discussed.
The G7 Summit was hosted by Italy. It was attended by the leaders of the US, UK, Japan, Canada, Germany, France, and the European Union, thus putting forward the need for global cooperation on certain pressing issues that the entire international community is facing.
