Modi's Riyadh visit is important for India
When Prime Minister Narendra Modi sets foot on the Saudi soil on April 2, he will be hoping to give the strategic partnership between New Delhi and Riyadh a fresh fillip during his two-day visit to Saudi Arabia. A boost to economic ties and attracting greater Saudi investment in India too will be on the prime minister's wish list.
It's been six years since an Indian PM visited the desert kingdom despite the close and robust bilateral ties the two countries enjoy. The last Indian PM to visit the oil-rich kingdom was PM Manmohan Singh in 2010. The visit had seen New Delhi and Riyadh ink the important "strategic partnership" agreement in a bid to upgrade bilateral ties.
However, bilateral ties cannot be viewed merely through the prism of this strategic partnership, straddle as they do a wide range of areas from the strategic to the economic.
Saudi Arabia is India's fourth largest trading partner with bilateral deals touching US$ 39.4 billion dollars in 2014-15. India's exports to the country have crossed the US$ 11 billion mark.
It also remains a vital contributor to India's energy basket by virtue of being its largest crude oil supplier. Nearly 19 per cent of India's crude imports come from Saudi Arabia, helping it meet one-fifth of its needs. Last year, we imported crude worth US$ 21 billion from Saudi Arabia.
This apart, the largest chunk of the eight million-strong Indian diaspora in the Gulf countries lives in Saudi Arabia. The desert kingdom, itself is home to a 2.96 million NRIs which send remittances worth over US$ 10 billion annually. This again is a substantial portion of the annual remittances worth US$ 35-40 billion sent by Indian expatriates in the Gulf.
The diaspora is also seen as a significant binding factor between the two countries. The people-to-people element is also bolstered by the annual pilgrimage Haj and Umra undertaken by Indians. Over 1,34,000 Indians go to Saudi Arabia every year on Haj and another 3,00,000 go to Umra.
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| Saudi foreign minister Adel Al Jubeir during his visit to New Delhi in March 2016. |
Lakhs of Indian blue-collar workers, who comprise a very substantial part of the Saudi workforce, too will be hoping that the PM will take up their cause with Riyadh, in terms of better working conditions.
Saudi Arabia is also the largest member of the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) contributing nearly half of the GDP of these countries. The GCC is seen as an important entity by India both in the economic and strategic sphere. Saudi Arabia will be the second member-state PM Modi will be visiting after the UAE within the span of less than a year.
While an Indian PM may be visiting Saudi Arabia after a long gap, there has been a regular exchange of high-level visits in the years since 2015 as the two countries seek to push ahead with their "strategic partnership". This pact envisages greater cooperation between New Delhi and Riyadh in the economic, political, defence and security spheres.
The inking of a defence cooperation agreement in early 2014 during a visit to India by then Crown Prince and now King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and an extradition pact during Manmohan Singh's visit were just the beginning of an ever-increasing security dimension to the relationship.
Neither New Delhi nor Riyadh is shy of talking about the growing security cooperation between them. External affairs ministry officials in South Block describe it as "very intense and close cooperation between our security agencies". This working in tandem in recent years has ensured the extradition of terror suspects such as Abu Jundal who was accused of involvement in the 2008 Mumbai terror strikes that left 166 persons dead.
Clearly, among the priorities for PM Modi during his visit to the desert kingdom will be to forge even closer ties in the security domain. Also, with Pakistan in India's terror calculus Saudi cooperation in dealing with terrorism becomes all the more important for India given that Islamabad has had traditionally close ties with the kingdom.
Indeed, Saudi foreign minister Adel Al Jubeir during his visit to New Delhi in early March had drawn attention to the need for the two countries to cooperate in order to effectively fight terrorism and extremism. More importantly, the Saudi leader had unequivocally stated that his country's ties with Pakistan do not come at the expense of ties with India.
Apart from boosting trade ties, greater bilateral investment will also be on PM Modi's agenda. The Centre is keen that leading Saudi businesses partner India in its development priorities, which includes infrastructure. It's felt that Saudi investments in India are far below its potential with the country ranking a lowly 50th in terms of direct investment here.