NEW DELHI: India and South Korea will be inking an audio-visual co-production agreement, which was accorded by the Union Cabinet. The agreement will include cooperation between the film industries of the two countries to promote export of Indian films and act as a catalyst towards creating awareness about India and its culture.

This will help in increasing bilateral trade between both countries. 

The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, approved completion of internal ratification procedure, to enable the agreement to come into force.

The Agreement will be signed during the forthcoming visit of the Prime Minister to South Korea. 

The agreement will mean that producers from both countries would 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 between the two countries, and co-productions would provide an opportunity to create and showcase the 'soft power' of India. 

The deal is also likely to generate employment among artistic, technical as well as non-technical personnel engaged in the arena of film production including post-production and marketing, thus adding to the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

The utilization of Indian locales for shooting raises the visibility / prospects of India as a preferred film shooting destination across the globe would be promoted and this will lead to inflow of foreign exchange into the country. 

This will also lead to transparent funding of film production. 

An audiovisual co-production agreement between India and South Korea 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 as well as open up new frontiers for the film industries of both countries.