Focus on ‘Act East’ as PM Modi set to visit Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand next week

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be visiting Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand next week, shifting focus to eastern time zones of the Indian Ocean and India’s Act East engagements, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) stated on Friday.

On the first leg of his visit, PM Modi will travel to Indonesia on July 6 and participate in several engagements in Jakarta. He will also be visiting the historic city of Yogyakarta and the Prambanan Temple complex, a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) World Heritage Site.

Highlighting PM Modi’s successful visit to Seychelles, MEA Secretary (East) Rudrendra Tandon noted that focus now shifts from the western Indian Ocean Region (IOR) to the eastern time zones and India’s Act East engagements.

According to Tandon, the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership that was first put in place when PM Modi visited Indonesia in 2018 has become a major building block in India’s ‘Act East’ policy and the ‘MAHASAGAR’ vision over the last few years.

Indonesia has always played an important role in the security and stability of Malacca strait and remains a very important maritime zone for India as it represents one of the important sealines of communications for India, Indian Ocean nations and the global economy.

Indonesia is also a key country within the ASEAN grouping that has been playing a very important role in strengthening the rules-based order in this zone.

“The leaders will review the relations and try and move forward all aspects of the relationship, particularly in maritime cooperation and in defence, in enhancing the trade and economic relations and deepening the age-old people-to-people ties with the Indonesia and other countries in the region,” the MEA Secretary detailed.

On the second leg of his visit, PM Modi will travel to Australia from July 8-10. In Melbourne, the PM will participate in the third India-Australia annual summit.

“This is the apex-level institutional mechanism that was put in place under the comprehensive strategic partnership agreement of 2020. This is fed by several ministerial dialogue mechanisms, but in particular defence ministers’ mechanisms, foreign ministers’ mechanisms and the trade ministers’ mechanism,” highlighted Secretary Tandon.

The conversations will also cover the emerging areas of India-Australia bilateral relations, in particular the critical minerals, cyber security domain, supply chain resilience and emerging technologies.

PM Modi will then travel to New Zealand on July 11 for the third leg of his visit, where he will hold discussions with his counterpart, Christopher Luxon.

Luxon visited India in 2025 and was the Guest of Honour and Keynote Speaker at the Raisina Dialogue 2025.

“There has been a kind of inflexion in India-New Zealand relations which has been gradually developed at a fairly rapid pace, which culminated in the signing of the India-New Zealand FTA in a short period of time,” noted Secretary Tandon.

The visit to New Zealand is also significant from a historical perspective as it will be the first visit to the country by an Indian Prime Minister in 40 years.

IANS