US Secretary of State Rubio to visit India from October 17 to 22, will go to Mumbai and Jamnagar
Marco Rubio will hold talks on energy cooperation, regional security and investment, with a delegation of over 200 business leaders, the US State Department said.
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US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is visiting India next week. According to the US State Department, the visit will take place between October 17 and 22. It has been planned to give further momentum to relations between the two countries. Rubio will travel to Mumbai and Jamnagar during the visit.
The State Department said the visit will include detailed talks on strengthening energy cooperation, regional security and new opportunities for economic investment.
This is Rubio's second visit to India in six months. A meeting of the Quad foreign ministers was held in New Delhi in May, which Rubio attended at the invitation of External Affairs Minister Dr S. Jaishankar. The US Secretary of State's return to India within such a short time shows the growing strategic and economic ties between the two countries.
According to an official statement from the US State Department, Rubio will meet senior government officials, policymakers and leading industrialists in India. The aim of the meetings is to strengthen the strategic partnership between the US and India, consider security challenges in the Indo-Pacific region and increase cooperation in green and conventional energy.
To boost trade and foreign direct investment, a large group of top American industrialists and senior executives will also travel with Rubio. The delegation includes more than 200 business leaders. It is believed this could encourage industry deals and new employment opportunities between the two countries.
The most important stop of the visit will be Jamnagar in Gujarat. Jamnagar is considered an important location on the world's energy map. It is home to Reliance Industries' refinery, the world's largest integrated petrochemical and crude oil refinery. It can process 1.4 million, or 14 lakh, barrels of crude oil a day.
US President Donald Trump made an announcement in March. According to it, the United States will build its first major refinery in 50 years with the cooperation and investment of Reliance Industries. The refinery will be built in Brownsville, Texas, at a cost of about 300 billion US dollars. Against this backdrop, Rubio's Jamnagar visit is seen as giving new direction to energy-sector dealings between the two countries.
In the first leg of the tour, Rubio will go to the historic Uzbek city of Samarkand, where he will attend the multilateral C5+1 ministerial council. At the meeting he will hold detailed discussions on bilateral security and trade with senior officials from the five main Central Asian countries: Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and the Kyrgyz Republic.
After completing the Central Asia talks, Rubio will travel directly to India. After discussions with Indian industrialists in Mumbai, he will go to Jamnagar to see the energy project.
