New Delhi: Slovakia’s Ambassador to India, Robert Maxian, has called for strengthening defence cooperation between both countries, urged the defence industries of the two nations to explore further possibilities.
In an interview with IANS, Maxian hailed India’s ‘Make In India’ initiative and stated that New Delhi has become self-sufficient in several sectors. He invited Indian companies to participate in the IDEB Exhibition set to be held in Slovakia.
When asked about the role Slovakia can play in strengthening India’s defence supply chain, the Ambassador responded, “Slovakia is a reliable partner in defence technologies. We are supplying defence technologies since the 1993 creation of the Slovak Republic. We have cooperated with the Ministry of Defence and public sector units and Indian Ordinance Factories. We have been one of the important suppliers of military hardware to India. After 30 years, the scenario has changed. There was an indigenisation of the Indian defence industry under the ‘Make in India’ policy and India became self-sufficient in many areas.”
“There are also private companies which are trading in defence items. Still, the cooperation is there. There are number of projects, we are cooperating together, like flight mission simulators, or recovery vehicles, or chemical detectors, or other products. I would like to call on the defence industry of both countries to really meet and discuss and explore the possibilities of the defence cooperation. For this there is a Defence Expo exhibition and Aero India show in Bangalore which Slovakia participated in the past. We are also having our IDEB Exhibition and I would like to invite the Indian companies to participate there,” he added.
He stated that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s upcoming visit to Slovakia is expected to further boost bilateral ties across several areas of cooperation, including investment, trade, innovation, artificial intelligence, students mobility and labour mobility. He also stated that India and Slovakia are expected to sign several agreements and Memorandum of Understanding (MoUs) during PM Modi’s visit to Slovakia.
Asked about the message PM Modi’s visit will send about growing partnership between India and Slovakia, Maxian stated, “The overall message will be to encourage our companies, organisations, and universities to cooperate more closely together, to have more student exchanges, to have more tourism, to have more trade, investments. Personally, I would like to have more Slovak companies in India. as of now, around 6,000 companies from the European Union have already set up offices in India and Slovakia would certainly like to have more. As Ambassador, I would like to give the support to all bilateral activities and help further strengthen our relationship and elevate it to a higher level.”
PM Modi is set to travel to Slovakia for a State Visit from June 14-16. This will be the first-ever visit by an Indian Prime Minister to Slovakia since its independence in 1993. During his visit, PM Modi will hold talks with his Slovakian counterpart, Robert Fico, and explore new avenues of cooperation. PM Modi will also hold talks with President Pellegrini.
“In the last 12 or 15 years, India became a global power. It is the fourth largest economy, will be becoming the third largest economy. India has changed a lot and has a lot of power in the Indo-Pacific region, but also in the global arena. There are many changes in other areas like digitalisation, artificial intelligence, infrastructure. A number of ports have been built up in the last 12 years. Also Delhi has changed. There is underground, there are numbers of flyovers. Overall, India is changing a lot. Last year we have been announcing our Indo-Pacific strategy. We consider in this strategy as India as one of the key cooperating partner. This is because of the fact that the middle class is rising, the people are spending much more,” he reflected on PM Modi’s leadership and India’s achievements under him in the last 12 years.
“Then also the GDP growth is around 6 per cent per annum, which means that there will be a great scope for the further development in this country and the further cooperation. So, as I have mentioned that the visit of Prime Minister Modi will give a great boost to our cooperation, also in the sense of the FTA which has been adopted just recently in January this year and which will give a completely new framework for our cooperation, relax the import duties and make the goods in India much cheaper because in the long run we are going to reduce the import duties of the items and generally it means that the Indians can buy the goods cheaper than it was before the FTA so we are very much enthusiastic that the FTA will be enforced by the end of the year or perhaps early next year and it is rather the political agreement which will create a free trade zone of two billion people so we are anxious and we are looking for that,” he added.
(IANS)
