Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar inaugurated a new consulate in the Northern Irish city of Belfast during his visit to the country.

He said the Consulate will serve the needs of the Indian community.

Speaking on the inauguration of the consulate, the EAM wrote on X: "The Consulate will serve the needs of the Indian community, while also exploring further cooperation in trade, technology, business and education."

Belfast's Economic History

Jaishankar addressed the gathering during the inauguration of the consulate when he reminded about the 'great economic history' of Belfast and its ship building capacities.

He said: "I think most of all it is known for its shipbuilding capabilities. But not just for that, I mean a lot of our IT companies have been present here."

"Some other businesses I understand have come here more recently. And we do see the economic potential and interestingly the investment agency from here, Northern Ireland, has actually been active, I think for more than 15 years now in India. So, there is a lot that we can see happening out of this consulate," he said

He said: "We saw in Belfast actually a meeting place in many ways between our UK policy and our European policies. We could see that this had a privileged access to both. Interestingly, we were negotiating free trade agreements with both UK and the EU in parallel, which we hope to conclude at an early date."

Jaishankar is on a week-long visit to the UK and Ireland.