Madives Foreign Minister Moosa Zameer arrives in India.
| Photo Credit: X@MEAIndia

Maldivian Foreign Minister, Moosa Zameer, who is on an official visit to India, said that he looks forward to productive discussions, and experiencing the vibrant culture of India.

Upon his arrival in the national capital on Wednesday, Moosa Zameer, in a post on X, wrote, “Arrived in New Delhi on my first bilateral official visit to India!”

“Looking forward to productive discussions, strengthening ties, and experiencing the vibrant culture of India,” he added.

Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) also shared details of his arrival on X, saying “Warm welcome to FM @MoosaZameer of Maldives on his official visit to India. Discussions on bilateral & regional issues and seeking ways to provide impetus to our multifaceted relationship lie ahead.”

According to the MEA release, the Maldivian Minister will hold a meeting with the External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar to discuss the bilateral and regional issues of mutual interest.

“Moosa Zameer, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Maldives will be in India on an official visit on 09 May 2024. During his visit to New Delhi, Foreign Minister Zameer will meet the External Affairs Minister Dr. S Jaishankar for discussions on bilateral and regional issues of mutual interest,” MEA statement said.

“Maldives is India’s key maritime neighbour in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) and Foreign Minister Zameer’s visit is expected to lend further momentum to the bilateral cooperation between the two countries,” it added.

The visit comes as India has said that it will replace its military personnel from Maldives before May 10.

On May 3, India and Maldives held the 4th meeting of the bilateral High-Level Core Group and reviewed the replacement of Indian military personnel from the Island nation by May 10 and noted that the government will replace military personnel before the noted time.

Earlier, the Mohamed Muizzu-led Maldives government formally requested that India withdraw its troops from Male.

Maldives Foreign Ministry said in a press release that both sides reviewed the existing bilateral cooperation.

“Discussions were held on a wide range of issues of mutual interest, including development and defence cooperation.”

“Both sides noted with satisfaction that the Government of India will replace military personnel at the last of the three aviation platforms by May 10, and all the logistical arrangements are going ahead as per schedule,” the press release added.

It was further agreed that the fifth meeting of the High-Level Core Group will be held in Male on a mutually agreeable date during the month of June/July.

Last month, the Ministry of External Affairs said that the first batch of Indian personnel in the Maldives had been replaced by technical personnel.

The External Affairs Ministry earlier informed that both India and the Maldives have agreed on a set of mutually workable solutions to enable the continued operation of Indian aviation platforms that provide humanitarian and medical evacuation services to the people of the Maldives.

Last month, the MEA said that the first batch of Indian technical personnel reached the Maldives to replace the defence personnel.

India and the Maldives have held two high-level core group meetings, and the third one is expected to take place soon.

The removal of Indian troops from the country was the main election campaign of Mr. Muizzu’s party.

Currently, there are around 70 Indian troops, along with Dornier 228 maritime patrol aircraft and two HAL Dhruv helicopters, stationed in the Maldives.

Mali, Maldives:

The Maldives votes Sunday in a parliamentary election likely to test President Mohamed Muizzu’s tilt towards China and away from India, the luxury tourism hotspot’s traditional benefactor.

Primarily known as one of the most expensive holiday destinations in South Asia, with pristine white beaches and secluded resorts, the strategic Indian Ocean island nation has also become a geopolitical hotspot.

Global east-west shipping lanes pass the nation’s chain of 1,192 tiny coral islands, stretching around 800 kilometres (500 miles) across the equator.

President Mohamed Muizzu, 45, won last September’s presidential poll as a proxy for pro-China ex-president Abdulla Yameen, this week freed after a court set aside his 11-year jail term for corruption.

This month, he awarded high-profile infrastructure contracts to Chinese state-owned companies as campaigning for the parliamentary elections was in full swing.

His administration is also in the process of sending home a garrison of 89 Indian troops that operate reconnaissance aircraft gifted by New Delhi to patrol the vast maritime borders of the archipelago.

The current parliament, dominated by the pro-India Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) of his immediate predecessor Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, has sought to stymie his efforts to realign the archipelago’s diplomacy.

“Geopolitics is very much in the background as parties campaign for votes in Sunday’s election,” a senior aide of Muizzu told AFP, asking not to be named.

“He came to power on a promise to send back Indian troops and he is working on it. The parliament has not been cooperating with him since he came to power.”

Since Muizzu came to office, lawmakers have blocked three of his nominees to the cabinet and refused some of his spending proposals.

Splits in all the main political parties, including Muizzu’s People’s National Congress (PNC), are expected to make it hard for any single party to win a majority.

But Muizzu’s prospects this week received a fillip with the release of his mentor Yameen from house arrest this week.

A court in the capital Male ordered a retrial in the graft and money laundering cases that saw Yameen sent to prison after he lost a re-election bid in 2018.

Yameen had also backed closer alignment with Beijing while in power but his conviction left him unable to contest last year’s presidential poll on his own.

He instead put forward Muizzu as a proxy, and after leaving the High Court on Thursday, Yameen vowed to continue the running anti-India campaign that helped his ally to victory.

Around 285,000 Maldivians are eligible to vote on Sunday, with results likely by early the next day.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Maldives tourism hit: Controversial tweets by Maldives ministers against PM Modi sparked a call by some Indians on social media to boycott the Maldives
| Photo Credit: AFP

In January, controversial tweets by deputy ministers of the Maldives on Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Lakshadweep led to a diplomatic row between the two countries. The consequences of this row have been two-fold. The tweets sparked a call by some Indians on social media to boycott the Maldives. This was an attempt by them to puncture the biggest money-maker for the Maldives, the tourism industry. Meanwhile, Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu strengthened ties with one of India’s rivals, China. Just a few days after tensions between the Maldives and India flared up, Mr. Muizzu visited China, met with Chinese President Xi Jinping, and appealed to Chinese tourists to visit his nation in large numbers and reclaim the top spot in tourist arrivals, which they once held.

Chart 1 | The chart shows the number of tourists who visited the Maldives in the first 35 days of 2023 and 2024.

Charts appear incomplete? Click to remove AMP mode

While the number of Indian tourists visiting the Maldives has declined marginally, Chinese tourists have swifty filled this gap, resulting in an overall increase in tourist inflows, data show. The number of Indians who visited the archipelago dropped marginally from 21,460 to 16,895 in the period considered. It is important to note that the decline cannot be entirely attributed to the boycott call as a considerable share may also have dropped their plans fearing repercussions of the ongoing row, among other reasons. Moreover, the number of Russian tourists also decreased from 26,305 to 22,577 in the period, so India is not an outlier.

Also read: Indian tourists’ boycott call post Modi visit to Lakshadweep may impact Maldives | Data

The decline in Indian visitors did not have an impact on the overall number of tourists to the Maldives. In fact, if the first 35 days of 2023 and 2024 are compared, the number of tourists went up slightly from 1,97,252 to 2,22,502. This increase is entirely due to the sudden surge in the number of Chinese tourists from just 6,563 to 25,303 in the period.

Chart 2 | The chart shows the number of medical tourists from the Maldives who visited India for treatments.

More worryingly, the impact of the diplomatic fallout has been felt by more than just the tourism industry. Generally, 20,000 to 40,000 medical tourists from the Maldives visit India annually for treatment (Chart 2). On January 13, Mr. Muizzu announced that the government’s health insurance scheme will cover visits to the UAE and Thailand too, to “diminish reliance on a select group of countries”. He made this announcement immediately after his return from China. He also said that a 100-bed hospital with Chinese aid will be built.

Mr. Muizzu and Mr. Xi signed key agreements, including agricultural schemes that would “end its [Maldives’] dependence on one country for imported staple foods such as rice, sugar, and flour,” by growing them locally. Currently, the Maldives relies heavily on India for a number of products.

Chart 3 | The chart shows the value of commodities imported by the Maldives from India, between 2019 and 2021, in $ (vertical axis). On the horizontal axis, India’s share (%) in the Maldives’s total imports, across commodities is depicted.

The Maldives imports over 95% of its granite, 40% of its steel bars and coils, over 30% of tubes/pipes, electric motors and cement, 65% of flat-rolled iron and stainless steel sheets, and over 50% of bulldozers from India (Chart 3). Moreover, it sources over 80% of rice, 60% of eggs, close to 30% of cattle meat, 50% of onions, melons and nuts, 25% of wheat, over 45% of crabs/shrimp/prawns and cabbages, and 40% of tomatoes from India. Essentially, the tourism boom in the Maldives — from food to stay — relies heavily on the supply of raw materials from India.

Chart 4 | The chart shows the value of commodities exported by India to the Maldives in $ (vertical axis) and the Maldives’s share in India’s total exports (horizontal axis).

India exports 70% of its cabbages/cauliflowers, over 20% of eggs, over 10% of its melons and live animals and nuts to the Maldives. The archipelago’s key agreements with China after the fallout with India threatens this mutually beneficial relationship, and gives China more sway in the Indian Ocean region.

Source: UNcomtrade portal, India Tourism Statistics, Republic of Maldives’s Ministry of Tourism

vignesh.r@thehindu.co.in, sonikka.l@thehindu.co.in

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