ndia and the Philippines on Thursday reviewed the entire gamut of their bilateral ties during talks here between External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Foreign Sectretary Enrique A Manalo with special focus on defence, maritime security, counter-terrorism and transnational crimes.
Giving details of the parleys, Jaishankar also said “our growing economic ties, including trade and investments; development cooperation; health and pharma, tourism, air services, agriculture, fintech, science and technology and space cooperation,” also figured.
The two sides noted the importance of greater people to people ties, specifically in tourism and education sectors, he said adding India and the Philippines recognized our strong collaboration in ASEAN and in multilateral forums. As Indo-Pacific countries, underlined our strong convergence on key issues,” the external affairs minister said.
In a tweet after the talks, Jaishankar said “Just concluded a productive and comprehensive meeting of the 5th India-Philippines Joint Commission on Bilateral Cooperation with Enrique A Manalo, Secretary for Foreign Affairs of the Philippines. Our talks covered enhancing contacts and broadening cooperation as we head towards the 75th anniversary of our diplomatic ties...”
Earlier in his opening remarks, Jaishankar said the domestic agenda of both countries is focused on inclusion and empowerment, that business to business is the pathway of going forward, the importance of our defence cooperation, the need to stabilise the Indo-pacific, the importance of respecting rule of law and promoting inclusive multilateralism…’and the fact that we are both democratic Asian Republics. I think all these messages resonate very strongly with us.”
He also said “from our perspective, we have of course been very keen to engage your Government and I know Prime Minister and President Marcos had a telephonic talk last year.”
The visiting Foreign Secretary announced that his country has ratified the updated Air Services Agreement with India. Asserting that India is a priority partner of the Philippines in science and technology, including space cooperation, Manalo said he hoped that the two countries can extend it further. Jaishankar and Manalo had last met in Cambodia on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit, in November last year.
During the delegation-level talks, Jaishankar underlined the need to stabilize the Indo-Pacific and the importance of the rule of law and promoting inclusive multilateralism.
In his address, Manalo thanked Jaishankar and the Government of India for the warm hospitality and welcome accorded to him and his delegation. The Philippines Foreign Secretary also noted the various areas of cooperation with India. “We attach great importance to our relationship with India. Since the first JCBC, a number of key areas of cooperation have already been discussed and in fact, action is taken, and we hope that we can extend it further to our discussions today.
India is a priority partner of the Philippines in science and technology, including space cooperation. Areas cooperation and trade and investment, defence, health, medicine, agriculture, tourism, financial, technology, just to name some,” he said.
Manalo also said India was ranked as the Philippines’ 15th trading partner and that the two countries are working further to cement these ties.
In a lecture on Wednesday here, Manalo had said his country wants to develop a “very robust” defence partnership with India and is looking forward to procuring military hardware from it.
The defence and security ties between India and the Philippines are on an upswing. In January last year, the Philippines concluded a USD 375 million deal with India for the procurement of three batteries of the BrahMos cruise missile.
A Joint statement issued after the talks said both Ministers committed to develop mutually supportive approaches to regional and international developments.
