Turn. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday met his British counterpart Rishi Sunak and reiterated his commitment to further strengthen the India-UK strategic partnership during the third term of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government.
The two leaders reviewed the progress made in the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) talks. The two leaders greeted each other warmly by hugging each other during the 50th G7 summit at Borgo Egnazia, a resort in Apulia. A statement issued by the Ministry of External Affairs said that Sunak congratulated Prime Minister Modi for his third consecutive historic term, while Modi wished the people of Britain for the general elections to be held next month.
The statement said that the two leaders reaffirmed the shared commitment of the two countries to further strengthen bilateral relations.
Modi posted on ‘X’ soon after the meeting, “It was a great pleasure to meet (British) Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in Italy. I reiterated my commitment to further strengthen the India-UK comprehensive strategic partnership in the third term of the NDA government.” Modi said, “There is a lot of potential to further strengthen relations in areas like technology and trade. We also talked about further strengthening relations in the defense sector.” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal described the meeting between the two leaders as “fruitful”.
Jaiswal said on ‘X’, “The two leaders reviewed bilateral relations in the areas of defense and security, trade and economic cooperation, high technology sectors and people-to-people contact. They discussed the implementation of ‘Roadmap 2030’ and the progress made in the ongoing FTA talks.” Sunak and Modi last met in September last year at the G-20 summit in New Delhi, when they agreed to accelerate the FTA talks before India’s general elections. Now the trade talks, however, are expected to resume only after the new UK government is elected on July 4. The India-UK FTA talks, which began in January 2022, aim to significantly increase bilateral trade.