'India-Jordan ties very strong, solid and based on mutual respect'

New Delhi, April 8 Jordan's Ambassador to India Yousef Abdelghani on Wednesday hailed the ties between two nations, terming them "very strong", "solid" and based on mutual interest and shared values. He also expressed Jordan's readiness to bolster relationship with India in future.

In an interview with IANS, Abdelghani stated that India and Jordan have already agreed to strengthening bilateral trade from around USD three billion to almost USD five billion.

"As a matter of fact, our relations are, I can describe it as very strong, solid, based on mutual interest and shared values. Last year, we celebrated the 75th anniversary of establishing diplomatic ties between Jordan and India," he noted.

The diplomat hailed the strong bond between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Jordan's King Abdullah II, pointing out the recent phone calls between both leaders after the West Asia conflict erupted on February 28.

"During the last visit of Prime Minister Modi to Jordan, we agreed to strengthen bilateral trade between the two countries from the current level, around three billion US dollars to almost five billion US dollars. We also agreed to look for new avenues of cooperation in different fields between Jordan and India."

Last December, during his two-day visit to the country, PM Modi met King Abdullah II and Crown Prince Al-Hussein bin Abdullah II. He also addressed the India-Jordan Business Forum and highlighted areas where the two nations can deepen trade, business and investment cooperation.

During the visit, the two sides finalised Memorandum of Understanding (MoUs) in the fields of culture, renewable energy, water management, digital public infrastructure and twinning arrangement between Petra and Ellora.

"In February, Her Majesty Queen Rania visited India. It was a high-level visit. I think that exchange visit is one of the things that has been agreed upon during the visit of Prime Minister Modi to Jordan and the relations between his majesty and Prime Minister Modi are very strong and solid. They do exchange regular phone calls and interactions and the last two phone calls were made by Prime Minister Modi to show solidarity with Jordan during the incidents of targetting of our infrastructure," said Abdelghani

"We also have an Indian diaspora in Jordan, more than 20,000 Indians live, we are taking good care of them in Jordan. Jordan is very important to India because we help support food security with fertilizers, with phosphoric acid, with phosphate, raw phosphate and raw potash. This also supports food security and industrial food industry here in India. So, we are keen to have strong, solid relations. We are keen to exchange regular visits. We are keen to have more development in our relations in the future," he added.

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