Nice (France): India and France on Sunday set a five-year target to double their annual bilateral trade from the current US $16 billion and unveiled an innovation roadmap and a joint artificial intelligence framework to expand ties in critical sectors following talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Emmanuel Macron.
The talks between the two leaders yielded 13 outcomes, including a high-speed railway cooperation declaration, a security pact for classified data, and an agreement to expand India’s UPI payment network to the Paris and Nice airports.
Modi landed in this Mediterranean French city on Saturday night as part of his week-long tour of France and Slovakia.
“The India-France partnership will keep scaling new heights,” the Prime Minister said on social media.
Foreign secretary Vikram Misri said the Modi-Macron discussions covered the entire range of bilateral relations, including civil nuclear energy, defence, security, space, trade and investment, technology, innovation, education, mobility, and people-to-people ties.
In the meeting, India’s plan to procure 114 Rafale fighter jets from French defence major Dassault Aviation was discussed.
Misri said the underlying focus was on having “maximum local content” in joint defence projects.
The foreign secretary said talks between the two countries on the Rafale jet programme have advanced, adding Modi has been pushing to move forward with the “Make-in-India concept” and to follow the “co-development, co-design, co-production” framework for defence projects between the two countries.
“There were talks on Rafale and other issues in today’s discussions but I will say the underlying theme was that in case of any defence platform we will move forward on the basis that there should be maximum local content, local manufacturing and our cooperation should be designed keeping this in mind,” he said.
Under India’s Multi-Role Fighter Aircraft (MRFA) project, 18 Rafale will be supplied by Dassault Aviation in a fly away condition and the rest will be manufactured in India with around 50 per cent indigenous content.
The talks between Modi and Macron focused heavily on shoring up ties in technology and innovation, with PM Modi emphasising the need for a human-centric approach to scientific advancement.
“A key focus of the discussions was also on strengthening and diversifying bilateral ties in the fields of economic growth, technology and innovation. This is especially relevant in view of the conclusion of negotiations earlier this year on the India-EU free trade agreement,” Misri said.
The two sides also deliberated extensively on expanding cooperation in the civil nuclear energy sector including regarding the project in Jaitapur.
