Jyotiraditya Scindia holds meeting with Sweden's Min for Infrastructure, discusses about direct flight connectivity between two countries

Union Minister of Civil Aviation Jyotiraditya Scindia on Tuesday held discussions with Sweden's Minister for Infrastructure where they both discussed on various key issues.

Jyotiraditya Scindia on his Twitter sharing pictures from his virtual meeting wrote, "Had a fruitful discussion with @TomasEneroth, Hon’ble Minister for Infrastructure,Govt of Sweden on a variety of key issues."

"From direct flight connectivity b/w the two countries and technical cooperation on air navigation services to collaboration on sustainable aviation fuels was discussed," the minister wrote further.

"Indeed, Sweden and India can establish common ground on the vision for civil aviation and mutually benefit from each other’s strengths in critical aspects of the sector," the minister wrote in anither tweet.

Speaking about both country's relation, India and Sweden have had longstanding close relations based on common values; strong business, investment and R&D linkages; and similar approaches to meet global challenges of peace and security and development.

Diplomatic relations were established in 1948 and steadily strengthened over the decades.

The partnership has witnessed a sharp upswing in the last few years with seven visits/ interactions at Head of State/Head of Government level in six years. This includes four interactions at Prime Ministerial level (September 2015 New York; February 2016 Make in India Mumbai; April 2018 Stockholm; April 2020 telephone conversation; Virtual Summit March 2021), the visit of President Pranab Mukherjee to Sweden in May-June 2015 and the visit of His Majesty the King of SwedenCarl XVI Gustaf to India in December 2019. Even during 2020, despite Covid19 constraints, there were eight substantive Ministerial interactions, most in virtual format.

Meanwhile, Scindia had on Sunday said that regular international flights will resume from March 27 as the coronavirus situation in India has improved now.

Due to the outbreak of COVID -19, scheduled international flight services were suspended on March 23, 2020. However, special international flights have been operating between India and about 35 other countries since July 2020 under air bubble.

"I have already given a direction that restrictions on international flights, which were imposed due to COVID-19, be lifted," Scindia said on the sidelines of an event here.