Ambassador stresses Korea's role as 'crucial partner' for India's economic transformation

Indian Ambassador to Korea Gourangalal Das stressed on Thursday that Korea is a “crucial partner” for India’s long-term economic transformation, highlighting Korea’s strengths in manufacturing, shipbuilding and advanced technologies as essential to India’s ambition of becoming a fully developed country by 2047.

“This particular date [of 2047] has significance for us because [it marks] the 100th anniversary of India becoming an independent country,” Das said at his residence in central Seoul. “And to find good partners worldwide, who can help us attain that goal through partnership [...] we see Korea as an important, very crucial partner in our developmental journey.”

The plan entails growing India’s economy through sustainable infrastructure and technology-driven development, with the contribution of Korean companies. 

Das’s comments about India’s envisioned partnership with Korea comes after President Lee Jae Myung held a summit with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a state visit to the Southeast Asian country last month, during which the two countries signed 15 memorandums of understanding and documents covering cooperation in the fields of technology and trade for the steel supply chain; ports; cultural and creative industries; small- and medium-sized enterprises; sports; climate and the environment; maritime heritage; and financial services.

The two leaders also agreed to advance bilateral economic cooperation and expand collaboration in strategic areas, including shipbuilding, finance, AI and the defense industry.

Korea and India established diplomatic relations in 1973, concluded their comprehensive economic partnership agreement in 2010 and upgraded bilateral ties to a special strategic partnership in 2015.

“Of course, the India-Korea relationship is important because it is an important partner for India’s efforts, which are geared toward manufacturing,” Das said. “Samsung is the largest mobile manufacturing company in India, just like Hyundai is the second largest auto manufacturing company in India. These are just some examples of how much potential we have on the manufacturing side.”

As part of economic cooperation efforts, the two countries aim to double annual bilateral trade from its current $25 billion to around $50 billion by 2030.

Das also underscored the potential for more cultural exchanges between the two countries.

“There is a good appetite for Korean creative and cultural content in India,” he said. “Likewise, Indian films, Indian movies, Indian arts and other cultural expressions also have a deep market in Korea, so we feel that India’s scale and Korea's sophistication in the production of creative outputs can be a good model for cooperation.

“Of course, I’m not here to say how India can be an important player for Korea. That is for the Korean side to assess. But I understand that India’s profile as the fastest growing [economy] today and [its] large market — [India] is an attraction to Korean businesses. It is a country with a huge talent pool of young people who are so attracted to each other’s soft power.” 

During last month’s summit, Modi proposed a joint film with Korea based on the legend of Queen Heo Hwang-ok, who traveled from ancient India to Korea to marry a Korean king. Lee reportedly responded positively.

BY PAIK JI-HWAN [[email protected]]