External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj today held wide-ranging talks with her Dutch counterpart Bert Koenders on stepping up bilateral engagement in a range of areas, including trade and investment, water, and education.

Swaraj and Koenders deliberated on the entire gamut of bilateral issues and agreed to take initiatives to strengthen ties in a number of sectors.

Relations between India and the Netherlands have largely been shaped by engagement in trade and investment. Dutch ships had come calling to Indian ports around 400 years ago.

The Netherlands is today one of India’s largest trading partners in the European Union.

Koenders’ arrived in Bengaluru on Sunday and met Karnataka’s Minister for Large and Medium Scale Industries R V Deshpande yesterday. He arrived in Delhi last evening.