Defence minister Rajnath Singh Monday held talks with his Italian counterpart Guido Crosetto in Rome during the first leg of his visit to Italy and France. With emphasis on opportunities in defence industrial cooperation, the defence ministry said that both sides discussed a host of defence cooperation issues, including training, sharing of information, maritime exercises and maritime security, a statement said. Singh suggested fostering interaction of Indian startups with Italian defence companies. An Agreement on Cooperation in the field of defence was inked, which seeks to promote bilateral cooperation in varied defence domains, such as security and defence policy, R&D, education in military field, maritime domain awareness, sharing of defence information and industrial cooperation, including co-development, co-production and setting up of joint ventures. On Thursday, he met CEOs and other top industry leaders of 24 Italian defence companies in Rome, where he highlighted improvement in the ease of doing business in India with the eased FDI norms in defence and creation of two Defence Industrial Corridors. Industry leaders from Leonardo, Fincantieri, Electtronica, Beretta, AIAD, Pasquali and other prominent companies were present. “India offers exciting opportunities for co-development and co-production and the complementary capacities of Indian and Italian defence industries could be optimised in a win-win situation,” he said, while requesting the Italian industry leaders to strengthen the supply chain linkages with the Indian defence manufacturers and develop closer ties with the Society of Indian Defence Manufacturers. Later, he visited Montone in Perugia Province and paid tributes at a Memorial recently built for Naik Yaswant Ghadge and other Indian soldiers who fought in the Italian campaign in World War II. Around 5,700 of 50,000 Indian Army troops lost their lives.
