New Delhi: German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius on Tuesday said a long-standing strategic partnership connects Germany and India.

The German Defence Minister during a media briefing on Tuesday said that next year, India and Germany will conduct a multi-day military exercise with the deployment of our naval units for the Pacific Program 2024, including a port visit.

"There will be an exercise in Goa. This is important for several reasons," he said.

The German Defence Minister while talking about his meeting with his counterpart Rajnath Singh, said, "We talked about the fact that our connection, our strategic partnership, should and must gain more momentum--not only against the background of current developments in the region, but also worldwide."

"We have established that defence is a pillar of this partnership between the two countries in a special way, precisely because of our joint strategic partnership experience. We both emphasized very, very clearly why the future will be and that is part of it," he said.

Pistorius said: "It is the first visit by a defence minister from the Federal Republic of Germany since 2015, i.e. in eight years. And I think it was about time. A long-standing strategic partnership connects Germany and India. The corresponding agreements were made in 2000 and 2011."

The German Defence Minister said: "We also talked about the war between Russia and Ukraine. The war has repercussions up to here in every corner of the world. That's no surprise. And India is trying very hard to significantly and quickly reduce its dependency on Russia for armaments, which is currently at 60 per cent. Germany is the largest trading partner for India in the EU, with a volume of 30 billion euros. That is significantly more than between India and France, for example."

Pistorius, who is on a four-day visit to India, was accorded a Guard of Honour at Manekshaw Centre in the presence of Rajnath Singh in Delhi. He also laid a wreath at National War Memorial in the national capital.

Pistorius, who arrived in the national capital on Monday is accompanied by a German delegation. Pistorius is likely to meet a few defence start-ups during an event organised by Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX) in New Delhi, the Ministry of Defence earlier said in a statement.

On June 7, the German Federal Minister of Defence will visit Mumbai where he is likely to visit Western Naval Command Headquarters and Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited.