The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, begins his first official trip to India this Sunday, a visit of a marked economic nature during which he will inaugurate an Airbus factory and support Navantia’s offer to provide six submarines to the Asian country’s Navy. and will visit Bollywood studios.
The visit to India had been pending on Sánchez’s agenda for a long time and became effective after a invitation from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modiafter having won the elections in his country last June and thus having begun his third five-year term.
An invitation that he extended to the wife of the head of the Government, Begoña Gómez, whose presence on this trip is framed by Executive sources as normal, rejecting that there is any fear that it could divert the focus of attention from the visit as a result of the fact that it is being investigated by Judge Juan Carlos Peinado.
The forecast is that she will have some event parallel to Sánchez’s agenda and, pending official confirmation, the intention is for him to visit a foundation of Nita Ambani, wife of the Indian tycoon Mukesh Ambani.
Traveling with the President of the Government is the Minister of Industry and Tourism, Jordi Hereu; and that of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Óscar Puente.
Also a group of businessmen with interests in India who will participate in a forum organized on the occasion of the visit to Bombay, the second stop on this trip that will first stop Vadodara cityin the state of Gujarat, and which Sánchez will arrive on this Sunday night.
Modi is originally from this state and will receive Sánchez there. Both will hold a meeting and chair the inauguration of a factory of the Airbus company, in whose capital Spain participates, and India’s Tata Advanced Systems.
In that factory, which will be the first private aviation plant in the country, 40 of the 56 C295 aircraft that will be manufactured will be manufactured. commissioned by the Indian Air Force. ANDThe C295 is a class-leading military transport aircraft, designed and Spanish manufacturing.
Support for the “green submarine”
Another Spanish company, Navantia, is pending the final decision of the Government of India to opt, together with the Indian construction company Larsen&Toubro, to manufacture six S-81 submarines in a project estimated at more than 4.5 billion euros.
This submarine is environmentally sustainable and its biggest rival to win the contract has been presented by the German company ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems (TKMS).
Modi met last Friday in New Delhi with the German Chancellor Olaf Scholzthree days before the meeting with Sánchez, in which the President of the Government will express his full and unconditional support for Navantia’s offer, understanding that it is the project that best responds to the conditions of the Indian Executive.
The Government also emphasizes the weight of the fact that it would be built in association with an Indian shipyard.
On the occasion of Sánchez’s visit, Spain and India will sign a series of agreements in various areassuch as economic, railway, renewable energy or sustainable urban development.
Furthermore, it will be agreed to celebrate in 2026 the dual Spain-India year in the cultural, tourism and Artificial Intelligence fields.
The President of the Government will talk about all this with Modi, as well as the bilateral relations of all kinds, those of India with the European Union and the situation of conflicts such as those in Ukraine and the Middle East.
Date in Bollywood
The agenda in Vadodara will take place during the day on Monday, and on Tuesday, in Bombay, Sánchez will speak at the business forum, attend another one of the Spain-India Council Foundation and will visit a technology center of the Indian company Tata.
He will attend a lunch hosted by CP Radhakrishnan, governor of the state of Maharastra (whose capital is Bombay) and Then it will be when you visit the studios of the Bollywood film industry.
Its intention is to support this industry for the efforts that Spain is making to become a ‘audiovisual hub in Europe.
There have already been Indian productions filmed in Spain and the objective is for them to multiply and even to establish studies in Spanish territory.
The message that he will take to India for this will be the one that he already conveyed in 2021 during the visit he made in Los Angeles, in the United States, to NBC’s Hollywood studios, and in the meetings he held there with executives of Netflix, HBO, WarnerMedia and Disney.
Before them, he outlined the pillars of the plan that allocates just over 1.6 billion euros to boost the Spanish audiovisual sector, which includes tax advantages for productions that decide to be located in Spain and the issuance of a special visa for expedite the arrival of professionals.
Eighteen years have passed since the last visit of a head of Government to India (which was carried out by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero in 2006) and seven since Modi visited Spainand with this trip, according to the Government, the aim is to relaunch the bilateral relationship in all areas with a country that is the largest democracy in the world and also the most populated after having surpassed China.
Sánchez could not be present at the G20 summit held in New Delhi last year because he was affected by covid and the Spanish delegation was led by the then first vice president, Nadia Calviño.
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