PM Modi to meet Australia and Japan PMs too at the G-20 summit

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is preparing to meet a host of global leaders, including the Presidents of the United States, Russia and China, and others with whom he shares a strong personal chemistry at the G-20 summit in Osaka later this month, eyeing to push his domestic as well as global agenda for a stronger economy and a rules-based order.

Modi is also expected to hold talks with leaders such as Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Australia’s Scott Morrison, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Indonesian President Joko Widodo (Jokowi), ET has learnt.

Meetings with Abe and Morrison will seek to push the Indo-Pacific agenda, and he will further the economic agenda in meetings with Merkel. A meeting with Jokowi, who has been re-elected for a second term, is also on the anvil, ET has learnt.


Modi and Abe share a strong bond and the two leaders are expected to pick up from the last annual summit to push for a strategic and economic agenda. Abe will also visit India later this year for the annual summit.

The Indian Prime Minister also considers Indonesia as a close maritime partner and key element for the country’s Indo-Pacific agenda and the proposed meeting with Jokowi would give a momentum to the partnership.

It is Merkel’s turn to visit India this year for the Inter-Governmental Commission and Modi will seek to increase German investments in India.

A meeting with French President Emanuel Macron on the sidelines of the G-20 Summit, ahead of the G-7 Summit (to which Macron has invited India), is also being finalised, ET has learnt.

Modi is also expected to interact with the Presidents of South Africa and Brazil during the informal BRICS summit. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa was the chief guest at the 2019 Republic Day celebrations.

Besides BRICS, Modi will join Chinese and Russian leaders at the third Russia-India-China Summit at Osaka. Simultaneously, the second edition of the Japan-America-India, or JAI, meet is being planned in the Japanese city.

The key themes of the G-20 under Japanese Presidency comprise global economy; trade and investment; innovation; environment and energy; employment; women’s empowerment; development and health.

India will continue to push for stronger measures to curtail money laundering and extradition of economic offenders.