New Delhi: India and Germany have signed their first-ever defence pact in Berlin. It provides for joint training, technology transfers and co-production of hi-tech military hardware.
Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee was in Berlin to sign the agreement. Germany's expertise in shipbuilding including submarines and air independent propulsion is acknowledged worldwide.
Mukherjee also discussed with his German counterpart cooperation in the fight against terrorism.
Mukherjee became the first Indian Defence Minister to visit the cemetery for Indian soldiers killed in World War One.
The bodies of 206 Indian soldiers are interred here. They had been captured by the German Army and died as prisoners of war.
India has become a reliable partner for German firms in recent years and an increasingly important customer for German goods such as machinery and equipment.
German engineering companies had sold goods worth €1.5 billion to India in 2005 and exports there had surged 137 per cent since 1999. Germany is importing an increasing amount of machinery from India.
Mukherjee had earlier visited Paris, where he met his French counterpart Michele Alliot-Marie and discussed ways to enhance Indo-French defence cooperation, the Iran nuclear programme and the situation in Lebanon and Afghanistan, besides other bilateral issues.
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