Stronger collaboration in the chemicals and petrochemicals sector was known as for the duration of a bilateral meeting between officials of the Department of Chemicals & Petrochemicals, Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers, Government of India, and the Ministry of Industry and Minerals, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
The Indian delegation was led by the Department of Chemicals & Petrochemical compounds’ Secretary, Ms. Nivedita Shukla Verma, while the Saudi Arabian side was headed by of the Vice Minister of Industry and Minerals, Mr. Eng. Khalil bin Ibrahim bin Salamah.
Saudi Arabia is India’s fourth-biggest trading partner, while India stands as Saudi Arabia’s second-largest trading partner. Bilateral trade between the two countries reached $41.88-bn in 2024-25, with chemicals and petrochemicals accounting for about 10%, or almost $4.5-bn. During the meeting, both sides mentioned avenues for enhancing bilateral cooperation, promoting investments, and figuring out new areas of collaboration in the chemicals and petrochemicals domain. The discussions emphasized the complementary strengths of the 2 countries – Saudi Arabia’s expertise in petrochemicals and India’s developing skills in speciality chemicals – and underlined the potential to harness these synergies for mutual advantage.
The two sides explored opportunities for increasing collaboration across the whole value chain, consisting of investments in India’s Petroleum, Chemical and Petrochemical Investment Regions (PCPIRs) and supporting partnerships bet ween major corporations from both nations. In addition, both parties agreed to work together in the areas of R&D and skill development to support innovation and capability constructing in the sector.
