India, Venezuela discuss health, energy, agriculture cooperation during meeting between PM Modi and Acting President Rod

New Delhi [India], June 5 (HBTV): Venezuela's Acting President Delcy Rodriguez on Friday expressed gratitude for her meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on June 4 in New Delhi and said the two leaders discussed cooperation in transportation, health, energy, agriculture, science and technology, among other areas.

In a series of posts on X, Rodriguez thanked India for the warm welcome and said, 'In this fraternal meeting, we addressed bilateral cooperation in the following areas: transportation, health, energy complementarity, agriculture, science and technology; exploring new avenues for strategic alliances for the benefit of both peoples.'

She said both sides reaffirmed their commitment to strengthening bilateral ties to ensure a future of shared prosperity for their nations and the Global South.

Meanwhile, on Thursday, Ministry of External Affairs Secretary (East) Rudrendra Tandon said India and Venezuela have strong complementarities in the energy sector and can work together in both upstream and downstream activities. He noted that discussions during Rodriguez's visit also focused on expanding economic cooperation into other sectors.

'Venezuela has already emerged as the third-largest supplier this month, so naturally today's discussions focused on forging an energy partnership. They see India as a stable demander for many years to come. Therefore, there exists a perfect complementarity for India and Venezuela to work in the energy sector, both upstream and downstream. The discussions also went into broadening the economic partnership to other areas,' he said.

'Venezuela is a resource-rich country. It's not just critical minerals; it's also gold, diamonds and other materials. So, mining is very much there. In fact, there was a discussion on how to assess the potential reserves that they have, or whether we could cooperate in that area, and that is very much part of the follow-up activities we will be undertaking,' he added.

Delcy Eloina Rodriguez Gomez is on a five-day visit to India.

India has been an important partner of Venezuela in the areas of energy and investment. Indian public sector undertakings have made significant investments in Venezuela's energy sector and are keen to explore opportunities to further expand their presence.

(ANI)