By Shivam Patel and Uditha Jayasinghe
NEW DELHI/COLOMBO (Reuters) -Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to enhance India’s development partnership with the Maldives in a two-day visit this week to the Indian Ocean archipelago, where India competes with China for influence.
Modi, who landed in Male on Friday, is the first foreign leader to visit President Mohamed Muizzu after he took office in 2023 with a pledge to end the Maldives’ “India first” policy, and upgraded ties with China.
Muizzu’s moves briefly soured relations with New Delhi, before India helped to prevent the $7.5 billion economy from defaulting on its debt as the Maldives struggled to get tourists to its white-sand beaches and luxury resorts.
He has since visited both countries, the Maldives’ main bilateral lenders, to secure financial support, as well as signing trade pacts with China and Turkey and initiating talks with India on a trade agreement and an investment treaty.
Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said steady diplomacy had helped to rebuild ties:
“There will always be events that will impact or try to intrude on the relationship. But I think this is testimony to the kind of attention that has been paid to the relationship, and including attention at the highest levels.”
Former Maldives foreign minister Abdulla Shahid told Reuters that Modi’s visit indicated Muizzu had “decided to step back and correct the narrative”.
India is expected to extend a line of credit worth $565 million to the Maldives, and talks on a Free Trade Agreement are expected to formally begin.
Modi will also remotely inaugurate an expansion of the International Airport on the island of Hanimadhoo, which India is helping to finance, and attend Saturday’s celebration of the Maldives’ 60th anniversary of independence from Britain.
(Reporting by Shivam Patel in New Delhi and Uditha Jayasinghe in Colombo;)
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