India, Korea discuss growing bilateral defence partnership

Seoul [Korea], June 14 (ANI): India and Korea have discussed the rapidly growing bilateral defence partnership. With the earlier signing of an Inter-Governmental Agreement on Strategic Partnership in Defence Production and the finalization of a Make-in-India Project to manufacture 155mm Self-Propelled Artillery Guns in India, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and his Korean counterpart Kim Dong-yeon expressed satisfaction at the rapid growth of ties since the last meeting of Defence Ministers in April 2015. Both the ministers on Wednesday co-chaired the Fifth India-Korea Financial Dialogue. During the meeting, Kim emphasized the importance that the new Government of ROK attaches to the development of the special strategic partnership with India. The two Ministers reviewed the international economic situation and India-Korea bilateral economic ties in that context. Both sides agreed that in the face of uncertainty and the risk of rising protectionism, there was a need for the two countries to increase efforts to stimulate investment flows, support for infrastructure development, and bilateral trade among others. As the world's fastest growing large economy, India offers Korea important opportunities to deploy its capital and technologies in India, and for India, South Korea's interest in finding new openings to diversify its economic partnerships offer India great opportunities. Later, the two Ministers witnessed the Signing of Agreements to establish US$ 9 billion in concessional credit and US$ 1 bn in ODA funding for infrastructure development projects in India. This implemented a decision taken during the State Visit of Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi to South Korea in May 2015. With this, Republic of Korea became one of the First non-G-7 countries to become an Official Development Assistance (ODA) contributor in India. Both the Ministers also agreed to consider deploying part of this fund towards the Smart City projects in India. They also agreed to establish a mechanism at senior official levels, to identify good infrastructure projects in India, to draw upon these funds. Earlier in the day, Jaitley also met the Korean Defence Minister General HAN Min-koo. They also welcomed the progress in building ties in Defence Education and looked forward to the expansion of this relationship through Policy Dialogue (a 2+2 dialogue) and through service-to-service ties. Tomorrow, Jaitley will call on the President, Republic of Korea, H.E. Moon Jae-in. He will also meet the leading Korean Financial Manufacturing Companies in several rounds of meetings. Jaitley is on a four-day official visit to Republic of Korea to participate in the Fifth India-Korea Financial Dialogue and the 2nd Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors of AIIB. (ANI)