Indian culture coming to Jordan to mark 66th Republic Day, 65 years of cooperation

AMMAN — India is coming to Jordan this year through various cultural activities in celebration of its 66th Republic Day, which also marks 65 years of cooperation and friendly relations between the two countries.

“We have lined up several activities to create awareness about India and boost cultural cooperation,” India’s Ambassador to Jordan Anil Trigunayat told The Jordan Times.  

In cooperation with local entities, activities will be held in Aqaba, Petra, and initially in Amman at the Royal Cultural Centre, with an Indo-Jordanian exhibition opening on Tuesday. 

“Our objective is to have one event every month, except in Ramadan,” he added.

“This year we hope to further increase our high- level exchanges and focus more on trade and investment,” the ambassador said in a recent interview on the occasion.  

“We have a joint commission that will hold its ninth meeting next month, and our Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will attend.”

 “We will take a complete review of all steps needed to boost trade relations... We are looking into further cooperation in the energy sector and more collaboration in the pharmaceutical sector and bioinformatics,” he added.  

Indian textile companies, he said, are expanding in Jordan, noting that their investment is over $300 million. There are eight textile companies in Jordan with 20 manufacturing units.

So far, India has remained Jordan’s fourth major commercial partner.

The Kingdom exports around 65.5 per cent of its total production of phosphates to the Indian market while India is the largest supplier of petroleum products to the Kingdom. 

In 2013, the joint commercial volume was around $1.65 billion, and trade also kept pace in 2014 amounting to over $1.35 billion in the first nine months, according to official figures.

“We understand Jordan’s economic challenges as a result of hosting Syrian refugees and we will continue to assist the Kingdom,” Trigunayat said.  

In October 2014, the Indian government presented Jordan with a $500,000 cheque for the Emergency Response Fund out of the funds pledged at the Kuwait Conference in January 2014.

He noted that bilateral ties continue to grow in light of what the two countries have in common.

“We are both multi-ethnic, multi-religious and progressive societies… and we are both democracies. India is the world’s largest democracy.” 

The embassy is currently working to relaunch the Jordanian-Indian Friendship Association in the next three months with the support of Jordanian graduates from Indian universities, who number around 2,500. 

India’s Republic Day, celebrated on January 26 every year, marks the adoption of the constitution of India.