An agreement is signed between India and France during the three-day visit of India’s External Affairs Minister regarding the bilateral exchanges. As per the reports, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and Jean-Yves Le Drian have inked the roadmap, which already came into existence on February 20.
Both countries are looking forward to better business relationships. With this decision, India and France want to enhance their bilateral exchanges on the blue economy and forge a common vision of ocean governance based on the rule of law and cooperate on sustainable and resilient coastal and waterways infrastructure.
“India and France intend to make the blue economy a driver of the progress of their respective societies while taking the environment and coastal & marine biodiversity in mind. Both countries aim to contribute scientific knowledge and ocean conservation and ensure that the ocean remains the global common, a space of freedom & trade, based on the rule of law,” stated the Ministry of External Affairs.
It is intended that both countries wish to contribute to the Sustainable Development Goal of the United Nations Sustainable Development Agenda, which aims to conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources.
“India and France bring up a high-quality dialogue on maritime security, which enables them to raise strategic issues in the Indi-Pacific. This relationship marks a significant step-forward in India-France cooperation for maritime security,” the Minister added.
This partnership can bring a lot of changes to help both countries in different ways. It will encourage sharing knowledge, methodologies for upgrading current infrastructure, tackling climate change, increasing port capacity, developing storage facilities, etc. It can extend to equipment development, fishing ships/boats, trawlers, spare parts and repair services and many more.
This is not all. The two countries will also seek private funding to establish an R&D Center to support joint projects. India and France will endeavour to gear up a project on the blue economy and knowledge about the oceans under the Indo-French Center for the Promotion of Advanced Research. Additionally, they will also work on visa issuance.
Let’s see how this partnership will work and how long this relationship will go!
