Prime Minister Narendra Modi left India on Oct. 28 for a two-day visit to Saudi Arabia. Apart from signing a dozen agreements on energy, civil aviation, security cooperation and defense, he also attended the Future Investment Initiative forum in Riyadh.

Holding the summit just a year after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, Saudi Arabia struggled to attract global executives to its signature investment conference. However, members of India’s business community, including Mukesh Ambani and Anand Mahindra, attended the event, along with some US administration representatives and global banking executives.

Al-Monitor spoke to Qamar Agha, a retired professor of West Asia studies at Jamia Millia Islamia University in New Delhi, and Emma Soubrier, a visiting scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. Soubrier’s research focuses on Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries’ security strategies and the political economy of arms trade in the Gulf.

Both emphasized the importance of the pact India and Saudi Arabia signed to form the Strategic Partnership Council, chaired by Modi and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. “This shows the close cooperation in all fields,” Agha said. “Until now, it was a buyer-seller relationship, with India buying Saudi crude [oil]. Now we are moving toward a closer relationship — even moving toward military cooperation. India and Saudi Arabia will have their first-ever joint naval exercise in December. Cooperation in defense production is also in the cards.”