New Delhi, August 26: Mridul Kumar has been named the next Ambassador of India to Liechtenstein. Kumar is presently serving as the Ambassador of India to Switzerland, the Ministry of External Affairs said in a press release on Saturday.

He has been concurrently accredited as the next Ambassador of India to Liechtenstein and will take up residence in Berne, the MEA informed through the release. Kumar is an Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officer from the 1992 batch, the statement added.

He is expected to take up the assignment shortly, the MEA release stated.

India and the Principality of Liechtenstein established diplomatic relations in 1993. The Ambassador of India to Switzerland, resident in Berne, is concurrently accredited asAmbassador of India to the Principality of Liechtenstein.

Despite its small size, Liechtenstein assumes importance on account of its membership in the UN and other international organisations as well as of the European Economic Area and EFTA (Switzerland, Norway, and Iceland). Liechtenstein is one of the four members of the EFTA, a group with which India hascommenced negotiations for an India-EFTA bilateral Trade and Investment Agreement (TIA).

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