New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Luxembourg counterpart Xavier Bettel will discuss the "strong" India and Luxembourg relations and international issues of common interest during the first stand-alone summit on Thursday.
"Happy to announce that a virtual bilateral summit will be held on 19 November between the Prime Minister of #India@narendramodi and the Prime Minister of #Luxembourg@Xavier_Bettel to discuss the strong relations and international topics of common interest," tweeted Luxembourg ambassador to India, Jean Claude Kugener.
India and Luxembourg, which share diplomatic relations that date back to 1929, will hold their first stand-alone summit on Thursday.
The India-Luxembourg Summit will be an opportunity to lay the platform for cooperation between the two countries in a post-Covid world, according to sources.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Luxembourg counterpart Xavier Bettel will discuss the entire spectrum of bilateral relationship, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said on Tuesday.
India and Luxembourg have continued to maintain high-level exchanges in the recent past.
Jean Claude Kugener, Ambassador of Luxembourg, in a recent interaction with Fortune India Exchange said that as per this year's Indian official statistics, "Luxembourg is the 15th Foreign Direct Investor in the country compared to its 16th ranking in 2018".
"Our [India and Luxembourg] historic bilateral ties go back to 1929, when our government opened its first vice-consulate in Bombay. This was followed by the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Republic and the Grand Duchy on July 1 1948. Over the decades, these relations developed from the extensive cooperation in the steel sector, as Luxembourg was among the top steel producers worldwide in the 19th century, into a strong partnership reflective of both countries' political priorities and business interests," he said.
Since July 2014, Luxembourg's cumulative investment in India has more than doubled--from USD 1.088 billion to USD 3.082 billion (March 2020), according to sources.
Luxembourg is the third-largest source of Foreign Portfolio Investments (FPI) in India after US and Mauritius accounting for approximately 8.5 per cent of these investments. Luxembourg Stock Exchange was the first stock exchange globally to list Masala Bonds in 2008.
