Prime Minister Narendra Modi will pay an official visit to Saudi Arabia from April 22-23 at the invitation of Crown Prince and Prime Minister of the Kingdom, Mohammed bin Salman.

This will be the PM’s third visit to the Kingdom. His previous visits took place in 2016 and 2019.

The visit follows the state visit of Prince Salman to New Delhi in September 2023 to attend the G20 Summit and co-chair the first meeting of the India-Saudi Arabia Strategic Partnership Council, the Ministry of External Affairs said on Saturday.

India and Saudi Arabia share close and friendly ties with a long history of socio-cultural and trade contacts.

As strategic partners, the two countries share strong bilateral relations across various areas, including political, defence, security, trade, investment, energy, technology, health, education, culture and people-to-people ties.

India’s relations with the Kingdom have evolved into a stronger and enduring partnership in the past decade, expanding into many strategic domains, with growing investment commitments, broadening of defence cooperation and intensive high-level exchanges across sectors.

”The visit of the PM reflects the importance India attaches to its bilateral relationship with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It will provide an opportunity to further deepen and strengthen our multi-faceted partnership, as well as to exchange views on various regional and international issues of mutual interest,” the MEA added.

Saudi Arabia is India’s fifth-largest trading partner and India is Saudi Arabia’s second-largest trade partner. During 2023-24, India’s imports from Saudi Arabia reached $ 31.42 billion and exports to Saudi Arabia were worth $ 11.56 billion.

In 2023-24, bilateral trade stood at $ 42.98 billion, with Indian exports at $ 11.56 billion and imports at $ 31.42 billion.

Major commodities of export from India to Saudi Arabia include engineering goods, rice, petroleum products, chemicals, textiles, food products, and ceramic tiles. whereas, major commodities of import for India from Saudi Arabia are crude oil, LPG, fertilizers, chemicals, plastic, etc.

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