NEW DELHI: After inking film co-production deals with China, India has now signed an agreement with South Korea to increase audio-visual exchange between the two countries. The deal was signed today during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to South Korea.

The co-production agreement includes cooperation between the film industries of the two countries to promote export of Indian films and will act as a catalyst towards creating awareness about India and its culture.

This will also help in increasing bilateral trade between both countries. The agreement was signed under the provisions of India-South Korea Exchange Programme.

The agreement also covers animation and broadcasting programmes and would enable opportunities for collaboration between Indian and Korean film industries, and facilitate collaboration and exchange.

Producers from both countries will get an opportunity to pool their creative, artistic, technical, financial and marketing resources to co-produce films. 

This will lead to exchange of art and culture among the two countries, and co-productions would provide an opportunity to create and showcase the 'soft power' of India. 

Additionally, it would lead to generation of employment among artistic, technical as well as non-technical personnel engaged in the arena of film production including post-production and its marketing, thus adding to the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). 

The utilization of Indian locales for shooting raises the visibility and prospects of India as a preferred film shooting destination across the globe would be promoted. This in turn will lead to the inflow of foreign exchange into the country. It will also lead to transparent funding of film production. 

The audio-visual co-production agreement would open up new frontiers for the film industries of both countries and is expected to open doors for wide ranging collaboration and lead to strengthening of India’s cultural presence in an important part of the world.