Swedish Royal Couple Visit India to Promote Investment & Innovation Partnership

New Delhi: Swedish King King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia will pay a state visit to India between December 2–6 to promote Swedish-Indian cooperation, including within the frameworks of the Joint Action Plan and the Innovation Partnership. This is the second royal visit to India from Europe since October, the first being visit by royal couple from Netherlands.

The visit affirms Sweden’s commitment to be a key partner for India in its rapid development, and in efforts to tackle common challenges in areas such as the climate change /environment, infrastructure, research and health. The visit aims to enable increased trade and investment for Swedish and Indian companies in both directions.

The royal couple will travel to New Delhi, Mumbai and the state of Uttarakhand.

The programme includes meetings with President Ram Nath Kovind, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar. The royal couple will attend the high-level policy dialogue on Innovation Policy, visit the Versova Beach Cleaning activity, visit Doorstep School that provides education for children who are first-generation school goers and attend the Tekla Workshop and Dialogue which aims at correcting the under representation of girls and women in technology.

The Swedish Government will be represented by Minister for Foreign Affairs Ann Linde, Minister for Business, Industry and Innovation Ibrahim Baylan and State Secretary at the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs, Maja Fjaestad in the State Visit.

In addition, a high-level Business Delegation representing Swedish Companies – encompassing both large, well-established companies and start-ups – will take part, along with representatives of Swedish Government agencies and universities.

This is the second State Visit to India by royal couple, the first was in 1993. It is the fourth high-level exchange between Sweden and India since 2015 when then President Pranab Mukherjee was on a State Visit to Sweden. In 2016, Prime Minister Stefan Löfven visited India and in 2018 Modi visited Sweden.

Source: ET

Image Courtesy: DELFI