Maldives-India signs deal on reciprocal recognition of COVID vaccination certificate

Maldives and India have executed an agreement on the reciprocal recognition of COVID vaccination certificates of the respective nations.

The agreement was signed at a ceremony held at Addu City last night, as part of India’s External Affairs Minister Dr. S. Jaishankar’s ongoing visit to the Maldives. Maldivian Health Minister Ahmed Naseem and Indian High Commissioner to the Maldives Munu Mahawar signed the agreement on behalf of their respective countries.

With the agreement in place, India will recognize the Maldivian COVID-19 Digital Certificate issued through covidsafe website. Meanwhile, Maldives will recognize the Indian COVID-19 Vaccination Certificate issued through their CoWIN platform.

Foreign Ministry stressed that this would facilitate easier travel between Maldives and India.

Apart from the agreement on reciprocal recognition of COVID vaccination certificates – several other agreements were also executed.

They include a peering agreement between Maldives’ National Centre for Information Technology (NCIT) and India’s National Informatics Centre (NIC) and Launch of Connectivity between the Higher Education Network of Maldives (HNM) and the National Knowledge Network of India (NKN). These agreements will recognize the general basis for a cooperative and collaborative working relationship between NCIT and NIC. This is expected to significantly improve connectivity and collaboration in an abundance of fields pursued by the Indian government including e-governance, digital distanced education, security, space, weather and e-health.

As part of his ongoing trip to the Maldives, Minister Jaishankar called on Maldivian Foreign Minister Abdulla Shahid last night. Bilateral talks pertaining to Maldives-India relations took place during this meeting.