Overview
- Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever arrived for a three-day visit from Sept 2 to Sept 4 and held bilateral talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Hyderabad House after paying tribute at Rajghat.
- Modi and De Wever announced an ambition to double bilateral trade within five years and signed memoranda intended to deepen cooperation on renewable energy and supply chains.
- Defence ministers from both countries met and urged stronger industry-to-industry links between Indian and Belgian defence firms with Belgium represented by Defence Minister Theo Francken.
- Concrete commercial projects were highlighted including a planned 2 GW electrolyser manufacturing facility in Kakinada by John Cockerill and proposals to link Belgium’s imec with India’s semiconductor ecosystem, plus port and diamond-sector engagements in Mumbai.
- The visit builds on July’s inaugural India-Belgium ministerial strategic dialogue and Belgium’s posting of a defence attaché to New Delhi, a sequence that aims to convert earlier MoUs into contracts and to deepen India-Europe ties before India’s BRICS chairship.