India, Netherlands agree to boost trade, cooperate across multiple sectors

New Delhi, May 24 (IANS): India and The Netherlands on Thursday agreed to boost bilateral trade and investment and strengthen cooperation across multiple sectors, including agriculture and food processing, water management and science and technology, following a bilateral summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Dutch counterpart Mark Rutte.
Jointly addressing the media with Rutte after attending an India-Netherlands CEOs Round Table that followed the bilateral summit, Modi said that hundreds of Dutch companies have been operating in India for many years now.
According to figures released by the External Affairs Ministry, India and The Netherlands have a bilateral trade of $7.621 billion (April 2017-Feb 2018).
On his part, Rutte said that ties between India and The Netherlands have become very close both on the economic and the political sides.
According to a joint statement issued following the summit, Modi and Rutte acknowledged the role of the private sector in boosting trade and investment relations and underlined the opportunities for intensive Indo-Dutch collaborations under India’s flagship initiatives such as Make in India and StartUp India.
In his address, Modi said that agriculture and food processing hold special significance for India as these are related to the country’s food security.
The joint statement said that innovation, technology and governance being key-ingredients in Indo-Dutch water cooperation, the respective institutions of the two countries have joined hands in several projects including a waste2wealth approach to solid waste and waste water in the Hindon Basin, in assisting leather industries in Kanpur and Unnao to adopt eco-friendly technologies, and in conservation of water through efficient agriculture practices in the sugarcane industry of Uttar Pradesh.
Modi also said that Indo-Dutch cooperation in science and technology has completed 10 years and expressed confidence that this will be further strengthened when The Netherlands will participate as the partner country in the Tech Summit to be held in India in 2019.
Following Thursday’s summit, the Dutch Prime Minister also signed the framework agreement of the India-initiated International Solar Alliance (ISA) in the presence of Modi.
Launched by Modi and then French President Francois Hollande at the Paris climate summit in 2015, the ISA was conceived as a coalition of solar resource-rich countries to address their special energy needs and provide a platform to collaborate on dealing with the identified gaps through a common, agreed approach.
Apart from Rutte signing the ISA framework, India and The Netherlands also signed a wide range of agreements and initiatives across different sectors like knowledge institutions, water, agrifood and horticulture, hi-tech, IT and space, life sciences and health, smart cities, business, and sustainability.