PM Meets Global Leaders at G20 Summit, Discusses Oil Price With Saudi Prince

PM also met South Korean President Moon Jae In, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Emmanuel Macron.

Osaka: Day one of the G20 Summit at Osaka showed how India was a sought-after country. The two trilateral meetings — RIC and JAI (Russia, India and China and Japan, America and India) — along with informal BRICS meet dominated the day. Key bilaterals with countries such as Saudi Arabia were an important element of the day.

Other than the PM’s much-touted bilateral with US President Donald Trump, he met Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, South Korean President Moon Jae In, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Emmanuel Macron.

With the Saudi Crown prince, PM Modi discussed the current gulf situation.

Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale said, “They discussed the situation in the gulf and the prime minister said that this could impact oil prices which is important for India. PM appreciated the efforts by Saudi Arabia in ensuring, oil supplies have remained stable and oil prices have remained predictable in the last few months.”

“Iran wasn’t discussed,” the Foreign Secretary added.

The Crown Prince has invited Indian PM for a conference in his country which will happen later this year. The Haj quota has also been increased for Indian, from 170,000 to 200,000.

While with Merkel-Modi meet saw a discussion on artificial intelligence, railway modernisation, with South Korea, the focus was on how to improve the visa regime between the 2 countries. South Korea has recently liberalized group visas for the Indian tourist.

PM also had pull-aside meetings Vietnam PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc and World Bank President David Malpass and met several world leaders such as Canada’s PM Justin Trudeau.

The PM will be meeting Indonesian President Joko Widodo, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, Italian PM Giuseppe Conte, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Hsien Loong, President of Chile Sebastián Piñera, and Australian PM Scott Morrison on the second and the final day of the G20 summit on Saturday. (By Sidhant Sibal)