Merkel's visit to India will cover security, clean energy, infrastructure among others: German envoy

The German Chancellor is set to arrive in India late Sunday night

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's visit to India will cover areas of security, economy, clean energy and climate among other deliverables, said the country's recently appointed ambassador to India Martin Ney.

Merkel is set to arrive here late Sunday night after which she and Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold the third Indo-German Intergovernmental Consultations (IGC) on Monday.

The German chancellor will be accompanied by cabinet ministers, including the Vice Chancellor and Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy of Germany, Sigmar Gabriel, German Foreign Minister; Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Defence Minister, Ursula von der Leyen among others.

Merkel will also be accompanied by state ministers, state secretaries and a business delegation. Addressing a news conference ahead of Merkel's visit, Ney said bilateral talks will be held between Merkel and Modi while separate bilateral talks will be held with the minister of respective countries. Business delegates from both countries will also meet and hold consultations.

"The deliverables will cover the areas of security, economy, development cooperation, clean energy, climate, infrastructure, urban mobility, innovation, higher education, skills development and culture and food security," said Ney.

He stressed that Germany was committed to work closely with India.

"I can assure you that they will not just talk-the-talk but deliver tangible results. In many cases bilateral memoranda of understandings will be signed," he added.

India, which has said it needs 1 USD trillion of investment by 2017 to upgrade its creaking infrastructure, is keen to attract foreign development agencies and companies to help finance new roads, railways and cities.

Von der Leyen earlier this year, held out the prospect of talks on a possible sale of Eurofighter jets to India. She had also said Berlin was also willing to support a project initiated by India last autumn to build six submarines at an estimated cost of 530 billion rupees (USD 8.3 billion).

India and Germany have had a strategic partnership since 2001; two rounds of IGCs have taken place in New Delhi in May 2011 and in Berlin in April 2013. The two countries also have institutionalised arrangements to deliberate on bilateral and global issues of interest like the strategic dialogue, foreign office consultations, joint commission on industrial and economic cooperation and the high defence committee among others.

As per a release by the German Embassy in India, Indo-German trade volume crossed the €15 billion mark for the year 2010. Trade volume between the nations increased nearly six times since 1991 with Indian exports to Germany increasing five times and imports from Germany, by almost seven times.