India-Italy announce joint strategic plan for five years during G20
India and Italy on Tuesday announced an ambitious five-year 'Joint Strategic Action Plan 2025-2029' that would include cooperation in key sectors of space, science and technology, research, defence and widening the ambit of economy.
The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said the five years’ plan was announced after Prime Minister Narendra Modi met his Italian counterpart Giorgia Meloni on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Monday.
The two decided to give further impetus through focused, time-bound initiatives and a joint strategic action plan, the MEA said.
At the political level, India and Italy “intensify meetings and interactions between the heads of other Ministries to deepen cooperation in all sectors of common interest,” the MEA said.
Further, the two countries would leverage the work of the Joint Commission for economic cooperation and the Italy-India Joint Working Group on food processing to increase bilateral trade, market access and investment.
The focus would be on transportation, agricultural products and machinery, chemical-pharmaceuticals, wood and furniture, critical and emerging technologies, food processing, packaging and cold chain, green technologies and sustainable mobility, including through co-development, co-production and joint ventures, the MEA said.
The next target would be industrial partnership, technological centres in automotive, semi-conductors, infrastructure and advanced manufacturing.
The MEA said the two countries would expand cooperation on critical and emerging technologies, forging technology value chains partnerships in both countries in sectors such as telecom, artificial intelligence, and digitalisation of services. New avenues of cooperation include focus on advanced manufacturing, clean energy, critical minerals extraction and refining, involving academia and industries.
The Indo-Italian Innovation and Incubation Exchange Programme would be initiated for collective expertise and capacity for fostering scientific innovation and incubation ecosystems of academic and research institutions. The Executive Programme for scientific and technological cooperation for the years 2025-27, would be operationalised later this year, through which both sides will be co-founding significant research and mobility based joint projects.
In the space sector, the two countries plan to expand cooperation between the Italian Space Agency and the Indian Space Research Organisation to include projects of common interest in Earth observation, helio-physics and space exploration with emphasis on lunar science. Mutual commercial space collaboration, involving large industries is also lined up. By mid-2025, Italian delegation of representatives of the space industry will visit India, with a focus on research, space exploration and commercial collaboration.
On defence, India has noted Italy’s growing interest in the Indo-Pacific region, and two countries look to have their forces to increase interoperability and cooperation.
A focus would be on technology collaboration, co-production and co-development between respective defence platforms and equipment, the MEA said in a statement.
The two countries would negotiate a defence industrial roadmap, between the two Ministries of Defence and promote a memorandum of understanding between the Society of Indian Defence Manufacturers and the Italian Industries Federation for Aerospace, Defence and Security.
India is also looking to promote safe and legal migration channels, as well as fair and transparent labour training and recruitment procedures. A pilot project will cover training of health professionals in India and their subsequent employment in Italy.
The two countries would work on increasing film co-productions and filmmaking in their respective countries.
