His Majesty the King granted an audience to the Indian Minister of External Affairs, Salman Khurshid. He is in the country for a-two-day visit on the invitation of Minister-in-Charge of Foreign Affairs, Lyonpo Khandu Wangchuk.
Salman Khurshid succeeded S.M. Krishna as the Minister for External Affairs of lndia on October 28, 2012.
He also met with the Prime Minister, Jigmi Y.Thinley, in Thimphu yesterday.
After the meeting, during a press conference, Salman Khurshid, said Bhutan and India should explore means to become economic partners rather than just development partners. “To look at innovative ways of taking up challenges of our times and opportunities that global economic trends offer and takes us beyond development partnership to economic partnership,” said the Minister.
He said in economic partnership it doesn’t matter how big or small the country is in terms of population size. “What you need is right dimensions as far as economic intervention is concern. There are good ideas that the Bhutanese government has about using Bhutan as hub.”
Salman Khurshid said Lyonchhoen and he discussed virtually all areas of mutual concern. “We discussed the successful projects. We discussed the projects that are now being implemented and what needs to be done in near future.”
Areas of cooperation in the field of infrastructure development were also discussed. The Minister said they will be looking forward in exploring in other avenues such as tourism, education and ICT.
