New Delhi, Oct 29 (FN Bureau) The strategic partnership between India and France has become even more relevant in the 21st century, both to strengthen multilateralism, and even more for the future of the Indo Pacific region, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Friday, adding that while India is at the strategic centre of the region, France makes up the two bookends with a vast EEZ. “India sees France as a resident power in the Indo Pacific region, indispensable to its peace and stability, and a premier partner for India in the region,” he said at in his address at the Ambition India 2021 business forum being held at the French Senate in Paris. He said the bilateral partnership “must help safeguard our interests, protect the commons and uphold international law and multilateralism” and at the same time also offer better alternatives to countries in the region and enable them to make sovereign and viable choices. “For that, our partnership in trade, investment, connectivity, health and sustainability will matter as much as our cooperation in defence and security.” The EAM said that “Recent experiences also call for addressing concentration risk in manufactured goods, making supply chain resilient and adjusting to the emerging geopolitical competition of trade and technology”– in an oblique reference to manufacturing being concentrated in China. He stressed that closer economic partnership between India and France can support these shared concerns and strategic objectives. On India, he said “India is also an exciting, rapidly growing, stable, rule-based, market-driven and democratic frontier of economic opportunities, located at the very heart of the dynamic Indo Pacific region.”
He said India’s crossing the milestone of a billion dozes of vaccinations was based on a combination of domestic development and manufacture and licensed production, an extraordinary digital platform, exceptional delivery system and public acceptance. “For a country that had no PPE unit when the pandemic broke, we are now the second largest manufacturer in the world. Where we had one RT-PCR testing lab then, we can now do millions of tests in a day.” He said all stakeholders have contributed to the scale and speed of this enterprise. “But, what makes it possible is the radically transformed nature of public-private partnership, industry-science collaboration and the ease of doing business in India.” “Indeed, even as Prime Minister Modi led efforts to address the immediate challenges of an unprecedented pandemic, he also sustained the process of bold reforms to boost recovery, accelerate growth and make Indian economy more resilient and self -reliant, without turning our back on fair trade.” He said that India is expected to grow at 9.5% and remain the fastest growing economy at least till 2025, and touched on the reforms across various sectors including agriculture, manufacturing, labour, defence and others. On the defence defence industry, he said India’s drive for defence industrialisation and technological self-reliance offers excellent opportunities and France has world class capabilities in that regard.
Stating that France has been a key economic partner for India, Jaishankar said that top French businesses have had a long presence across every sector of the Indian economy, from luxury to defence, agriculture to manufacturing, infrastructure to technology and services. “Many lead their industries and export sophisticated products out of India. Post pandemic, I see an increased sense of confidence and interest, motivated, in part, by the same concerns that are driving our policies.” “There are three areas of critical importance to our collective future – health, climate and digital. Each is a promising opportunity for our partnership, not just for our economies, but also to build our global competitiveness and leadership in the emerging world.”
“As part of this vision, India has made bold offers for agreements on trade and investment.” “France has led EU in building a strategy for the Indo Pacific region. We look to France to put this high on European Commission’s agenda, so that a new framework will bring together over 1.8 billion people, and some of the largest economies, joined by democracy and trust in the shared pursuit of prosperity and shaping a new order.” “France and India are fortunate to have the best of both – political trust and economic opportunities. And, we must seize this window of opportunity. To promote flow of investment and business in both directions. That is how it must be,” he added. That has produced decades of solidarity, most recently during the pandemic, and a relationship free from sudden shifts and surprises,” in an oblique reference to the formation of the AUKUS partnership in September, whose sudden announcement created an upheaval in geopolitical equations, and caused deep bitterness in France. The AUKUS partnership, between Australia, the UK and US, under which Australia is to get eight nuclear powered submarines made by the UK and the US, led to Canberra cancelling an earlier order with France for conventional submarines – leading to much anger in France.