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A joint initiative against terrorism and its funding was launched in the meeting of PM Modi and Italy’s PM Meloni during the G20 Summit in Johannesburg. PM Meloni expressed solidarity with India on Delhi blasts. Both countries agreed to increase cooperation in many areas including trade, technology, AI, defence.
There was a meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni during the G20 Summit held in Johannesburg, South Africa. This meeting has further strengthened the relations between the two countries. In this meeting, PM Meloni expressed full support towards India on the terrorist blast outside the Red Fort of Delhi on November 10 and clearly said that Italy stands with India against terrorism. This statement shows the growing trust between the two countries. The most important decision taken in the meeting was ‘India-Italy Joint Initiative to Counter Financing of Terrorism’. This joint initiative has been created to crack down on terrorism and its funding network.
According to the Ministry of External Affairs, this initiative will also help India and Italy to work together on global forums like FATF and GCTF. Its objective is to increase intelligence sharing, tracking mechanism and collective action between the two countries against terror funding. The conversation between PM Modi and PM Meloni was not limited to security only. Both the leaders agreed to increase cooperation on many sectors like trade, investment, technology, artificial intelligence, space, defence, research and cultural cooperation. India-Italy relations have continuously improved in the last few years and this meeting is being considered as another big step in that regard.
Support regarding these Chinas also
During the conversation, Prime Minister Meloni also reiterated his support for early completion of the India-EU Free Trade Agreement with the European Union. He also said that Italy will provide full support for the success of the AI Impact Summit to be organized by India in 2026. This increasing cooperation between the two countries in the field of technology and AI will open many new opportunities in the future. After the meeting, PM Modi posted on X and wrote, ‘Had a very good conversation with PM Georgia Meloni. India-Italy strategic partnership is continuously getting stronger and the citizens of both the countries are getting huge benefits from it. The shared picture of the two leaders was also widely discussed on social media.
How much did Italy invest?
MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said that both the countries have expressed satisfaction over the progress of the Joint Strategic Action Plan 2025-29. This scheme will give new impetus to economic, technical and cultural relations in the coming times. At present the trade between India and Italy is around 15 billion dollars during 2023-24. Since 2000 till now, Italy has invested about 4 billion dollars in India. These figures show that both countries are becoming increasingly important to each other economically.
