Sánchez will travel to India for the first time at the end of October

Luis Ayllón The President of the Government plans to make his first official trip to India on the 28th and 29th of this month, where he will be received by the Prime Minister of that country, Narendra Modi, will participate in several business meetings and in the Spain-India Council Forum and will make a visit to Bollywood, according to what The Diplomat learned from government sources. Sánchez has wanted to travel to India for some time, but various circumstances have prevented him from doing so until now. The last time his trip was scheduled was at the beginning of September 2023, in order to attend the G-20 summit in New Delhi, but he was forced to cancel the trip after testing positive for Covid. Now, after having travelled to Beijing and Shanghai a month ago, Sánchez intends to make a visit to what is already the most populated country in the world, with some 1.5 billion inhabitants, having surpassed China. In this way, in a short space of time he will have visited the two great Asian giants. Sánchez's will be the first visit by a Spanish Prime Minister to India, since José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero did so in 2007. However, Sánchez will not travel to the capital of the country, New Delhi, but to Bombay and Vadodara, in the state of Gujarat, where Narendra Modi was born, and where he was the top ruler. It will be there, where both leaders will meet and where they will participate in a meeting with leaders of large Spanish and Indian companies. The following day, the President of the Government will travel to Bombay, to attend the Spain-India Council Forum and participate in a business meeting, so, as happened during the stay in China, the visit will have an important economic content. Sánchez's programme also includes a visit to Bollywood, the Indian film industry, considered the largest in the world. Modi and Sánchez, who will hold a meeting on the first day of the visit, have already been able to talk on several occasions, both online and in person. The Indian Prime Minister officially visited Spain in May 2017, but then the Prime Minister was Mariano Rajoy. At the end of 2018, with Sánchez already at the head of the Executive, a first meeting took place during the G-20 summit in Buenos Aires, which would be followed by another, in the same framework, but at the meeting held in Rome in October 2021. Sánchez and Modi will have the opportunity to analyse different aspects of the international situation, and also the state of bilateral relations, in which there is no major dispute. One of the issues pending for the Spanish Government is the possibility that India could award Navantia the construction, in Indian shipyards, of six submarines for the Navy of the Asian country, a contract that would be valued at around 4.8 billion euros. Navantia competes with the German firm ThyssenKrupp.

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