Bilateral relations

Bilateral relations between Luxembourg and India

More than seven decades of Friendship

The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and the Republic of India established diplomatic relations on 1 July 1948. Historically, Luxembourg and India have had very strong economic and trade relations, which led to the opening of a first Vice-Consulate of the Grand Duchy in Bombay in November 1929 to strengthen the already extensive cooperation in the steel sector. With the establishment of the Embassy of Luxembourg in New Delhi in February 2002, the political, trade, financial and cultural relations between both countries increased ever since.

The number of high-level visits over the years reflects the cordiality of these bilateral historical relations. Among these important visits, we wish to highlight a few. On 6 January 2026, India’s Minister for External Affairs, Dr. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar paid a working visit to Luxembourg. From 16-18 March 2025, Luxembourg’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, H.E. Xavier Bettel participated at the “Raisina Dialogue” conference in New Delhi. The former Minister of Foreign and European Affairs, H.E. Mr. Jean Asselborn, visited New Delhi on his fifth official visit to India on 26 and 27 April 2022, where he had a bilateral meeting with the Minister of External Affairs, Dr. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar among others. Other high-level visits include the two-day visit of the late Minister of External Affairs of India, Smt. Sushma Swaraj, to Luxembourg from 19 to 20 June 2018 at the eve of the 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations. In addition, the President of India Shri K.R. Narayanan undertook a three-day State visit in Luxembourg from 14 to 16 September 1998.

Luxembourg and India have worked for many decades as partners in multilateral fora with shared values on democracy, the rule of law and climate change to name but a few areas of mutual understanding.

Album photos

Dr. S Jaishankar meeting with H.R.H. Grand Duke Guillaume

©Maison du Grand-Duc
PM Frieden and DPM Bettel with PM Modi

©MAE Luxembourg
(from left to right) Dr Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, Minister of External Affairs of the Republic of India; Luc Frieden, Prime Minister

© SIP / Emmanuel Claude

Partners in trade and investment

Luxembourg and India are also important trade and investment partners, which is supported on an institutional level. The Joint Economic Commission (JEC) between the Belgium Luxembourg Economic Union (BLEU) and the Republic of India meet on a biannual basis to review the economic and trade relations between our countries. The last meeting of the JEC was held in New Delhi in April 2024.

Many companies from Luxembourg have been manufacturing in India for more than two decades and are increasingly active on the Indian market. To name some of them, PAUL WURTH has for instance equipped and built blast furnaces for all Indian steel producers throughout the country. ARCELOR MITTAL , with its global Headquarters in Luxembourg since the merger, is also increasing its presence in India, after having taken over Essar Steel and strengthening its production lines. With a presence in Karnataka and West Bengal, CERATIZIT provides hard cutting materials for different industries and the greater South and South East Asian markets. The Luxembourg-Indian Joint Venture AMER-SIL KETEX in West Bengal is producing highly sophisticated gauntlets for the automotive industry for South Asia. IEE produces car seatbelt reminders, among others, and is expanding its presence in Pune. TRAXYS is very active on the commodities and iron ore market and works with the main Indian steel producers. TRACTEL SECALT based in Mumbai provides lifting facilities for building projects and the maintenance services for skyscrapers. Luxembourg and India are also working together in space as the Luxembourg company “Société Européenne de Satellites” ( SES ), the world leader in operational satellites, has partnered with Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) for many years and is operating 5 satellites over India.

The main items in terms of trade in goods are machinery and mechanical appliances, electrical equipment and articles of base metal. The Luxembourgish company ROTAREX for instance exports high performance valves, regulators and fittings for all gas applications serving its customers across various sectors including fire safety, automotive, oil and gas, energy and fertilizers in India. HITEC has been exporting its carbon black products to the Indian automotive industry for two decades. BOSON ENERGY provides thermal treatment solutions that produce local clean energy from locally available fuels such as waste and biomass residue and has been selected for the Clean Ganga project. SOLAR CLEANO exports solar panel cleaning robots to the Indian market. VALVE COMPETENCE LUXEMBOURG (VCL), active in production of all types of special valves for the steelmaking industry, the gas/oil industry, and the glass industry, has established a presence in Bhubaneswar. The trade relations between Luxembourg and India are very diverse.

In 2025, according to the Indian Official Statistics, Luxembourg is the 14^th Foreign Direct Investor in India compared to the 15^th ranking in 2020.

The Luxembourg Stock Exchange listed its first Masala bond in 2008 and in 2016 it launched the Luxembourg Green Exchange (LGX), the first platform in the world fully dedicated to issuing Green Bonds. Indian public companies, State Bank of India (SBI) and Power Finance Corporation (PFC) Ltd. have dual listed their green and sustainable bonds on Luxembourg Stock Exchange and India International Exchange (India INX) in 2021 and 2022 respectively.

The Grand Duchy is a European hub for setting up a company’s regional headquarters, primarily due to its central location and cosmopolitan population. The country has 3 official languages – French, German and Luxembourgish. English is also widely spoken. Luxembourg has hence attracted a lot of interest from Indian companies, especially in the IT sector like TATA CONSULTANCY SERVICES, WIPRO, INFOSYS, TECH MAHINDRA, SYNCORDIS, DAMCO SOLUTIONS and QUANTUM BUSINESS ADVISORY to name just a few. It continues to do so and there is a growing potential for incubators and start-ups to join efforts together, especially in the Fintech sector, but not exclusively.

The Luxembourg Technoport for instance has an ongoing cooperation with the Kalinga Institute in Odisha. The cooperation is likely to become stronger in the context of EU-India Free Trade Agreement (FTA).

NGO partnerships

A large number of NGOs from Luxembourg have partnerships and work with local partners in India, mostly in the fields of health, education and social work with a special focus on women and children. Among them are “Programme d’Aide et de Développement pour les Enfants du Monde » ( PADEM ), « Aide à l’Enfance de l’Inde et du Népal » ( AEIN ), ECPAT Luxembourg , Pharmaciens Sans Frontières , Entwecklung duerch gerechten Handel (EDGH), les Amis du Tibet, Main Tendue, Dignity asbl, ASTM , IBISA and Fondation Caritas Luxembourg .

Bilateral cultural ties

Luxembourg and India also have strong cultural ties.

One of the strongest cultural links between Luxembourg and India is the late modernist Indian artist Amar Nath Sehgal (1922-2007) who spent 24 years in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.

The artist left a remarkable heritage with numerous sculptures, paintings and drawings in private and public collections. Visitors will find the bust of Mahatma Gandhi created by Sehgal in the Municipal Park of the capital. The Embassy collaborates regularly with the Sehgal Private Collection in New Delhi.

Since the opening of the Embassy, many renowned artists from Luxembourg such as Greg Lamy, Jerome Klein and musical group bands such as Advaita Crescendo, Dock in the Absolute have given musical performances in different cities of India. In addition, the Luxembourgish artist, Alain Welter has also painted murals at the campus of IIT Bombay as a part of IIT Bombay, Techfest in 2024.

The Embassy also participates in many Film Festivals throughout India showing film productions or co-productions from Luxembourg.

The cultural ties between Luxembourg and India are also upheld by people like the Indian actress, Niharica Raizada, who was born and raised in Luxembourg and acted in Bollywood productions.