Faheem Al-Hamid Okaz/Saudi Gazette NEW DELHI – Crown Prince Salman Bin Abdul Aziz, Deputy Premier and Minister of Defense, will arrive in New Delhi on Wednesday on a three-day official visit. This is the highest-level visit from the Kingdom after the 2006 landmark trip by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah. New Delhi is preparing to roll out the red carpet for the 100-strong delegation. Crown Prince Salman, who is visiting India at the invitation of Vice President Hamid Ansari, will call on President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. This will be Crown Prince Salman's second visit to India, the first one was in April 2010 when he visited the South Asian giant as Emir of Riyadh region. The Crown Prince's visit aims at strengthening the bilateral relations. Riyadh and Delhi have already institutionalized intelligence links and deepened cooperation on counter-terrorism. The two countries will operationalize a billion-dollar joint investment to fund infrastructure and boost growth, according to Hindustan Times. The announcement by Indian Finance Minister P. Chidambaram about the Crown Prince's visit is an indication of how much importance both countries place on growing Indo-Saudi relations. India and Saudi Arabia are to sign a defense cooperation pact during the visit. The proposed defense pact will allow shared use and exchange of defense-related information, military training and education as well as cooperation in areas varying from hydrography and security to logistics. Chidambaram, who was in the Kingdom for the 10th session of the Saudi-Indian Joint Commission Meeting (JCM), said that the Kingdom and India “have been able to make significant progress in relations over the past few years.” Chidambaram's visit was also meant to further cement bilateral cooperation in an entire gamut of trade, commerce and other vital sectors. In this regard, the Indian minister's visit should be termed a major success. An official visit by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Riyadh in 2010 and the Riyadh Declaration signed in February 2010 elevated the bilateral engagement to “strategic partnership” covering security, economic, defense and political areas. Saudi Arabia is India's fourth largest partner with bilateral trade of over $43 billion in 2012-13. Saudi Arabia is also India's largest crude oil supplier accounting for about one-fifth of total imports in 2012-13. As of 2012, there were 350 Indian projects in the Kingdom with a total value of $1.6 billion in various sectors, such as construction, contracting, administrative consulting and IT. Indians form the largest expatriate community in Saudi Arabia. There are over 2.88 million Indian nationals working in Saudi Arabia. In recent years, there has been significant progress in bilateral cooperation in key areas of mutual interest, including energy security, trade and infrastructure development projects, said an Indian foreign ministry statement. – With agencies See also: Seelam invites Saudis to invest in one of the favorable investment destinations
