New Delhi: Crown Prince of Dubai, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence of the UAE Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum met Indian leadership in New Delhi to cement cooperation in trade, investment, energy and defence areas.
According to Kuwait News Agency, a statement from the Prime Minister's Office said that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Crown Prince of Dubai, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence of the UAE Sheikh Hamdan, who arrived in New Delhi earlier today on a two-day official visit and discussed ways of firming up India-UAE Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. Both leaders discussed ways to further strengthen cooperation in trade, investments, defence, energy, technology, education, sports and people-to-people ties.
Modi thanked UAE leadership for ensuring the welfare of around 4.3 million Indians living in the UAE, underlining their vital role in the vibrant ties between the two nations. Sheikh Hamdan also met Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh.
The two defense ministers expressed happiness on the current defence cooperation through institutional mechanisms, military exercises and exchange of training programmes while acknowledging the need for scaling up defence cooperation to match the progress made in other areas such as trade and business.
"They identified training exchanges as one of the key areas of defence cooperation, which would enable understanding of each other's defence ecosystems and accelerate strengthening of bilateral defence ties," a statement from the Indian Defence Ministry said.
Both sides also agreed to deepen Coast Guard-to-Coast Guard cooperation through an MoU. "They were convinced that close collaboration between the defence industries should be an integral part of the bilateral cooperation. They emphasised on increasing defence industry collaboration and discussed opportunities for enhancing partnership in defence manufacturing," the Ministry said.
The Dubai Crown Prince also met Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, who valued the positive sentiments of the visiting UAE official for the wide-ranging cooperation and vibrant ties between the two sides.