On day two of his state visit to India, President Moon Jae-in and Prime Minister Narendra Modi rode the subway to a new Samsung Electronics factory following their first meeting at the National Gandhi Museum. Today’s event was all the more meaningful as Prime Minister Modi made another first. After his first trip to the Gandhi National Museum together with a foreign head of state, the Prime Minister became the first Indian leader to participate in the dedication ceremony for a factory that had no connection to the Indian Government.

The dedication was attended by some 300 key figures from Korea and India, including the officials of local partners of Samsung. Attending from the Indian side besides Prime Minister Modi were Minister of Electronics & Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister of Commerce and Industry Suresh Prabhu and Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Yogi Adityanath. 

In his congratulatory remarks, Prime Minister Modi noted that today was special as it marked India's emergence as a global manufacturing hub. The Prime Minister pointed out that nearly all middle-class households in India have Korean brand products and that Samsung in particular has secured a special position in the lives of Indians. He emphasized that his country's growing economy and emerging middle class would provide investors with limitless opportunities. Noting that the plant was now Samsung's largest mobile phone manufacturing facility, the Prime Minister added that about 10 million phones per month would be manufactured there, calling it emblematic of both countries’ shared vision.

Offering his congratulatory remarks, President Moon said he was very pleased by the fact that Korean companies were part of enabling the fast economic growth of India, one of the most dynamic countries in the world. He added that the busier the factory in Noida became, the more the two countries’ economies would progress together. Noting that the plant was now the largest Samsung smartphone factory in the world, the President said that he hoped that Nodia-made smartphones would spur Korea and India’s information technology-based societies. 

President Moon pledged that the Korean Government would make every effort to support the Noida factory completed today so that it would become a symbol of the two countries’ mutually beneficial cooperation.