Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich traveled to New Delhi on Monday to sign a bilateral investment agreement (BIA) with Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.
The Israeli Finance Ministry hailed the agreement as a “significant milestone in Israel-India relations.”
“This is a strategic step that will open new doors for both Israeli and Indian investors, strengthen Israeli exports, and provide businesses on both sides with certainty and tools to develop in the world’s fastest-growing markets,” Smotrich said.
“India is a developing economic powerhouse, and cooperation with it is a tremendous opportunity for the State of Israel,” he added.
“The agreement we signed expresses our shared vision for innovative and secure economic development. This is not only an opportunity for our investors but also a way to strengthen the economic partnership between our nations in an increasingly interconnected global economy,” he said.
“Our cooperation with the developing Indian economy has broad strategic implications,” said Israeli Finance Ministry Director-General Ilan Rom, a member of Smotrich’s delegation to New Delhi.
“This relationship places Israel in a key position in regional economic networks and opens a window to one of the world’s largest and fastest-growing markets,” said another member of the delegation, Accountant General Yahli Rotenberg.
The Indian embassy in Tel Aviv told the Jerusalem Post that India and Israel “have cultivated a shared vision for mutual prosperity, fostering collaboration at bilateral, regional, and global levels.”
“This strategic partnership reflects the aspirations of our peoples and drives cooperative endeavors across sectors, including technology, agriculture, entrepreneurship, and workforce development,” the embassy said.
India signed over 80 bilateral agreements with other countries between 1994 and 2015, but canceled many of them upon review, including an agreement with Israel that was terminated in 2017.
The new BIA is intended to replace and expand upon the terminated trade agreement. The Israeli Finance Ministry hopes to expand bilateral relations even further by establishing financial protocols that would provide better financing for Israeli exports to India.
India plans to renew many of its old bilateral agreements along similar lines. The deal with Israel is the first new bilateral agreement India has signed with a member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), an intergovernmental organization that includes most of the free world’s economic powerhouses, including the United States.
India is still working on a bilateral trade deal with the United States, a tempestuous process that has been complicated by President Donald Trump’s imposition of a 25 percent punitive tariff on India for purchasing Russian oil. Indian Finance Minister Sitharaman said on Tuesday that negotiations with the U.S. remain “ongoing.”
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