NEW DELHI: Pitching their ties as a “message of peace and stability” amid global tensions, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and South Korean President Lee Jae Myung on Monday expanded cooperation across energy, critical minerals, shipbuilding, semiconductors and steel, set a target to double bilateral trade to $50 billion by 2030 and announced Seoul’s entry into the International Solar Alliance and the Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative.
The two sides also agreed to resume stalled negotiations to upgrade the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), with the next round scheduled for May and a deadline to conclude talks by the first half of 2027.
Projecting a broader economic and strategic alignment, Modi said cooperation would expand “from chips to ships, talent to technology, environment to energy,” spanning semiconductors, electronics, maritime industries and defence manufacturing.
Bilateral trade currently stands at around $27 billion. To drive this, the two countries agreed to set up a ministerial-level Industrial Cooperation Committee, their first such mechanism, to coordinate investments and supply chains in critical minerals, nuclear and clean energy and advanced manufacturing.
CEPA ‘rewrite’
The push to upgrade CEPA comes amid stalled talks in 2024 over tariffs and non-tariff barriers. The joint declaration commits both sides to holding the next round in May and concluding the upgrade by mid-2027. Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said India might rewrite chapters of the CEPA if needed to address India’s trade deficit