JAIPUR, India: India is seeking greater trade engagement with the Gulf Cooperation Council, its commerce minister told Arab News on Thursday, as delegates gathered for the G20 Trade and Investment Ministerial Meeting.
Held under India’s G20 presidency in the northern city of Jaipur, the meeting, which takes place from Aug. 24-25, is expected to feature talks on World Trade Organization reforms, and ongoing challenges to global trade logistics, investment, and integration of micro, small and medium enterprises into world commerce.
The Saudi delegation is led by Commerce Minister Majid bin Abdullah Al-Qasabi, who held a bilateral meeting with his Indian counterpart Piyush Goyal ahead of the summit.
“It was a very, very useful engagement,” Goyal said. “A lot of decisions have been made, about which you will hear in the days to come.”
While Saudi Arabia is a member of the G20, India has invited to the ministerial meeting delegates from the UAE, Oman and Egypt, which are not G20 states.
Their presence is seen as reflecting New Delhi’s growing ties with Arab countries, which are India’s largest trading partner, with the volume of bilateral trade exceeding $240 billion during the financial year 2022-23.
The bulk of India’s trade has been with GCC countries, especially the UAE, with which New Delhi signed a free trade pact last year, and with Saudi Arabia.
“We have large investments coming from GCC countries,” Goyal said.
“Our relations with the Middle East (countries) are on the growth trajectory. We are in dialogue with many of the GCC countries, Middle Eastern countries, for greater engagement in trade and furthering the shared interests of prosperity for both the region and India.”
The minister was expecting the two-day summit to conclude on Friday, with various agreements in place.
“I have the confidence looking at the first session this morning that we will all be able to agree on a broad consensus on all trade-related issues,” he said.
“There’s been significant progress in the deliberations at various levels to come up with a strong outcome document.”
India seeks greater engagement with GCC after G20 commerce meeting
https://arab.news/6nfxk
India seeks greater engagement with GCC after G20 commerce meeting
- G20 Trade and Investment Ministerial Meeting held in Jaipur
- Arab nations are the country’s largest trading partner
Two family members of Mexico’s education secretary killed in shooting
MEXICO CITY: Authorities in the western Mexican state of Colima said they killed three people suspected in the shooting deaths of two family members of Mexico’s secretary of education on Saturday.
Colima, located on Mexico’s Pacific coast, is one of the country’s most violent states. It recorded the highest homicide rate in Mexico in 2023 and 2024, according to the US State Department.
The local prosecutor’s office said officers killed three suspects in the 4:30 am (1030 GMT) shooting of two women, whom Mexico’s Secretary of Public Education Mario Delgado later identified as his aunt and cousin.
They did not identify a motive in the shooting or say whether they were searching for other suspects.
“Deep shock, outrage, and sorrow over the events that occurred this morning in Colima, where my aunt Eugenia Delgado and my cousin Sheila were brutally murdered in their home,” Delgado wrote on X on Saturday.
Officials tracked the suspects’ vehicle to a Colima home on Saturday afternoon and killed three people in a gunfight, according to the prosecutor’s office.
Investigators found weapons and clothing in the suspects’ home linked to the double shooting.
Delgado was appointed education secretary by President Claudia Sheinbaum in 2024. He previously served as national president of the ruling Morena party.
