"Mutual investment is major goal of our bilateral relations ...": Greek PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis on ties with India

Feb 21, 2024

New Delhi [India], February 21 : The Greek Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who is on a two-day visit to India, described India on Wednesday as the world's fastest-growing economy, and underlined that Greece, also, over the past years enjoyed some of the fastest growth rates of any European country.
"India is the world's fastest big economy. Greece has over the past years enjoyed some of the fastest growth rates of any European country. Mutual investment is a major goal of our bilateral relations and I'm pleased to say that we already have a number of significant Greek investments here in India in many sectors, including food processing, maritime and air transport, logistics."
He said that Greece can act as an interlocutor between India and Europe, given its geographic, cultural and strategic proximity.
"As I told Prime Minister Modi, during his recent visit to Athens, I should point out the first by an Indian PM since 1983. We are at a unique moment of mutually beneficial opportunity, one in which Greece, given its geographic, cultural and strategic proximity, can act as an interlocutor between India and Europe..." the Greek PM said in his address at the inaugural session of the ninth Raisina Dialogue on Wednesday.
He said that Greece is pursuing new corridors for data and energy. "The emergence of groundbreaking projects like IMEC -India Middle East Europe Corridor hold great promise to supercharge connectivity between India, the growth economies of the Middle East and Europe," Mitsotakis said.
"One has just to look at the map to realize that Greece is sitting right in the centre of this new corridor and to our friends in India, I say we are your natural doorstep to Europe and beyond..." he added.
At the ninth Raisina Dialogue in Delhi, the Greek PM said that India is already investing heavily in Greece's infrastructure..."
"The volume of our bilateral trade is on an upward trend, but we have agreed with Prime Minister Modi that we need to do much more and we need to set a target to double it by 2030..." he noted.
Mitsotakis arrived in the national capital on Tuesday and was received by Union Minister of State for External Affairs, Meenakashi Lekhi.
The Greek PM is currently on a two-day State visit to India.
Posting from his official handle on X, the official spokesperson for the Ministry of External Affairs, Randhir Jaiswal wrote, "Warm welcome to PM @kmitsotakis of the Hellenic Republic as he arrives in New Delhi on his first State Visit to India. Received by MoS @M_Lekhiat the airport. PM Mitsotakis is the Chief Guest and Keynote Speaker at #RaisinaDialogue2024."
Notably, this marks the first bilateral head of state or government-level visit from Greece to India after 15 years.