President Dr. Mohamed Muizzu is scheduled to undertake an official visit to neighboring India in October.
Indian media reports that Muizzu is slated to visit India in the second week of October for his first-ever bilateral trip to the neighboring country since assuming office as the eighth president of Maldives, back in November 2023.
Muizzu, who was at the forefront of the ‘India Out!’ campaign led by the then-opposition Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) and People’s National Congress (PNC) coalition against India, has been working to maintain close ties with India since assuming office.
Indian media outlets have reports that the Maldivian leader’s India trip carries the purpose of “resetting” the soured relations between the two countries, due to the ‘India Out!’ campaign.
President Muizzu made an official visit to India in June this year to attend the swearing-in ceremony of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Even after coming to power, some senior political figures in the incumbent administration made highly derogatory posts on social media about India’s PM, which further soured relations between the two countries.
Further, this has also led to a significant drop in the number of Indian tourists visiting the island nation.
The President’s Office in early September revealed that Muizzu is scheduled to make a quick trip to the neighboring country at a time the Maldives is facing significant economic challenges.
Indian media reports that the trip is now scheduled from October 7 – 9.
As part of the trip, the Maldivian leader will sit down for talks with PM Modi on October 8.
Indian media reports that Muizzu’s China-leaning government has cancelled the Joint Hydrographic Survey Agreement that the Maldives made with India back in 2019 and ordered the withdrawal of 85 military officials who were operating three aircrafts gifted by the Indian government.
These actions have been described as efforts by the Muizzu administration to show that Maldives is “not” dependent on India.
Despite these measures, Indian media reports that relations between the two neighboring countries have been improving over the course of the past couple of months.
As such, Indian media outlets have reported that during the visit of India’s External Affairs Minister Dr. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar to the Maldives back in August, Muizzu himself had stated that “India is the closest country to the Maldives and an invaluable partner”.
As part of EAM Jaishankar’s visit, Maldives and India signed an agreement to introduce the "Unified Payments Interface" (UPI) system to the Maldives.
Indian media outlets recently reported that India extended the deadline for repayment of the USD 50 million Treasury Bill issued as budgetary support to the Maldives, to help the Maldives avoid defaulting on its Sukuk bond.
This was the second rollover the government of India has granted to the Maldives this year and is followed by the first rollover of a USD 50 million Treasury Bill on 13 May 2024.
While the U.S. credit rating agency Fitch Ratings has warned that the Maldives could go bankrupt due to unpaid debts, India is among the two countries from which the Maldives has borrowed the most foreign debt. The other country being China.
Although the government has stated that they have received a "green signal" that these two countries will provide easier terms for the loans taken, the government has not confirmed that these arrangements have been finalized.
