Vice President Hamid Ansari was on a five-day visit to Hungary and Algeria, where he raised the matter of cross-border terrorism and a host of other bilateral issues.
About Hungary :
Hungary is a parliamentary constitutional republic in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Romania to the east, Serbia to the south, Croatia to the southwest, Slovenia to the west, Austria to the northwest, and Ukraine to the northeast.
- Hungary is a member of the European Union, NATO, the OECD, the Visegrád Group, and the Schengen Area.
- The official language is Hungarian, which is the most widely spoken non-Indo-European language in Europe.
- The country’s capital and largest city is Budapest and Currency is Hungarian forint
About Algeria :
Algeria, officially the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a sovereign state in North Africa on the Mediterranean coast. Its capital and most populous city is Algiers, located in the country’s far north.
- With an area of 2,381,741 square kilometres, Algeria is the tenth-largest country in the world, and the largest in Africa.
- Algeria is bordered to the northeast by Tunisia, to the east by Libya, to the west by Morocco, to the southwest by the Western Saharan territory, Mauritania, and Mali, to the southeast by Niger, and to the north by the Mediterranean Sea. The country is a semi-presidential republic consisting of 48 provinces and 1,541 communes (counties).
- Abdelaziz Bouteflikahas been President since 1999.
- The country’s capital is Algiers and Currency is Dinar
About the Visit :
The Vice-President had wide-ranging interaction sessions with government leaders and others in both Budapest and Algiers.
- During his discussions with Hungary’s President Janos Ader, Prime Minister Viktor Orban and other top leadership, both the countries sought a strong global legal framework and sustained global action to deal with the threat.
- India and Hungary also signed two MoUs, including one on water management, during the three-day trip to the central European country.
- Ansari will hold discussions with Presidents of Hungary and Algeria, Prime Minister of Hungary and Speakers of national assembly.
During his two-day visit to Algeria, Ansari had wide ranging discussions with Algeria’s President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal and Foreign Minister Ramtane Lamamra and stressed on taking the India-Algeria ties to a new level and how to “rejuvenate” the bilateral relations.
- Ansari also met President of Algerian National People’s Assembly Mohamed Larbi Ould Khelifa and President of Council of Nations Abdelkader Bensalah and discussed with them various issues concerning both the countries.
- Other issues like anti-terror cooperation between India and Algeria also figured in the meetings the Vice President had with the Algerian leadership.
- India is keen to join hands with Algeria to explore the possibility of setting up a multi-billion dollar fertiliser project, bearing in mind the phosphatic reserve available in this North African country which is estimated to be more than 5 billion tones.
- The Vice-President and the accompanying delegation, including Minister of State for Chemicals and Fertilizers Mansukh L Mandavia, have a busy agenda during the three-day visit.
- More substantive business, including meetings with Algerian President (since 1999) Abdelaziz Bouteflika and Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal, awaited Mr. Ansari.
Given Algeria’s substantial oil and gas and also phosphate deposits, India expects to work with the country to add significant fertilizer capacity. More than four-fifths of the land area of Algeria is covered by the Sahara Desert. Oil and gas were discovered in 1950, and then the French colonisers were forced to exit in 1962.
