NEW DELHI: As India’s Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar starts his visit to Saudi Arabia, the focus is back on the growing India-Saudi relationship.
Both countries have begun to view each other as strategic and economic partners. Saudi Arabia is India’s fourth largest trading, partner and bilateral trade stood at $42.68 billion in 2021.
With strong economic and strategic ties geopolitics could facilitate the formation of a new grouping like the Quad.
“Saudi Investments in India are to the tune of $3.13 billion. With the strengthening of relationship betweeen the two countries, which improved after PM Modi went to Riyadh in 2019, there could be a possibility of another grouping with Saudi Arabia. India already has a trilateral grouping with UAE and Israel and the I2U2 which includes the US,’’ say sources.
Major Saudi investment groups include Aramco, Sabic, Zamil, E-Holidays and Al Batterjee Group.
Additonally, Soft Bank’s ‘Vision Fund’ has invested in Indian start-ups like Delhivery, FirstCry, Grofers, Ola, Paytm and PolicyBazaar.
India’s ties with Saudi Arabia began to improve when Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman visited Delhi in February 2019 and in October the same year Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Riyadh at the invitation of King Salman.
This led to the formation of a Strategic Partnership Council (SPC) which focussed on four areas — political, security, socio-cultural relations and defence cooperation.
Meanwhile, Jaishankar, has flown directly from Tokyo (where he had gone to attend the second 2+2 with Japan) to Riyadh today to have a comprehensive review of bilateral relationship with Saudi Arabia.
“Dr Jaishankar will co-chair a ministerial meeting of the Committee on Political, Security, Social and Cultural Cooperation (PSSC) under the SPC. His counterpart from Saudi Arabia Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud will be present in the meeting. Cooperation in defence, UN, G20 and GCC will also be discussed,’’ according to the Ministry of External Affairs.
Jaishankar on Saturday met the Indian diaspora. There are close to 3.5 million Indians living in Riyadh. Traditionally, India and Saudi Arabia have been contributing to each other's economies.
India imports between 18 to 20 per cent of its crude from there and 30 per cent of its LPG requirement. Indian workforce constitutes nearly 2.6 million of the ex-pats living there and over $8 billion flows in as remittances.
Meanwhile, the Saudi sovereign Public Investment Fund (PIF) has made investments worth $1.5 billion in Reliance’s Jio and $1.3 billion in Reliance Retail Ventures Limited in 2020.
Reliance Industries has appointed Aramco’s Chairman (and PIF Governor), Yasir Al-Rumayyan, to its board.