India, Jordan target bilateral trade of USD 5 billion by 2020

India and Jordan have decided to increase their bilateral trade to USD 5 billion by 2020. This is an attempt to upscale their bilateral trade. The bilateral trade between India and Jordan stands at USD 2.2 billion as of 2014-15. Jordan is strategically and economically important to India.

India’s President Pranab Mukherjee, who completed his two-day visit to the country on October 10-11, addressed the Indian diaspora and Jordan University where he was conferred an honorary doctorate. Apart from that Mr Mukherjee also met investors including those from the Indian community. India and Jordan discussed the need for phosphate and potash to cover the Indian market. Mr Mukherjee is the first Indian President to visit Jordan.

Commending the level of bilateral relations Mr Mukherjee had a detailed discussion regarding all fields of cooperation, including defence productions, security, bilateral investments during his meeting with King Abdullah of Jordan. “We are interested in expanding the fertiliser project here and we are also interested to have a long-term relationship for a supplier of phosphate to our country,” Mr Mukherjee said.

India and Jordan signed six MoUs in the area of maritime transport, training programme for diplomats, IT and electronics, cultural exchange programme, standardisation and conformity assessment, cooperation between news sources of India and Jordan.

With the rise of extremist groups like the Islamic State, India and Jordan have been working towards enhancing security and defence cooperation. Speaking about the increase in terrorism in the region, Mr Abdullah said, “We are all facing a global challenge of extremism and terrorism. And again, this is an issue that we want to talk about to our friends in India with tremendous seriousness.” Mentioning it as a third world war, he spoke about it as a fight inside of Islam and the need to bring all religions together to fight. He also thanked India’s support in this issue.

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