New Delhi, April 14: Prime Minister Narendra Modi today promised to set up a special team dedicated to assisting German companies in investing in India - a mechanism New Delhi has already launched with Japan.

The assurance came after the Prime Minister held discussions for two hours with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin.

India and Germany are also "exploring" roadmaps to expand their defence and security cooperation, Merkel and Modi said in a joint statement.

Ursula von der Leyen, Germany's defence minister - one of the few women defence ministers among major nations - is expected to visit India soon. Foreign minister Sushma Swaraj will travel to Berlin later this summer.

Merkel will visit India in October for the biennial inter-governmental consultations the two nations hold, officials said.

"I have decided that we will establish a mechanism for German companies to facilitate their investments and business in India," Modi said, speaking alongside Merkel, before a play of words on the lion that is the symbol of the Prime Minister's "Make in India" initiative and the eagle that is Germany's national symbol.

"I believe that there will be a strong partnership between the king of the earth, the lion, and the king of the skies, the eagle."

Germany is the world's fourth largest economy and Europe's largest.

No pacts were signed - Indian government officials have insisted that this is a "working visit" and not a full-fledged bilateral trip.

But Merkel and Modi both spoke of a convergence of strategic interests that both nations have often not focused enough on - from peace in Afghanistan and diplomacy with Iran to business with Russia and the freedom of navigation in the East and South China Seas.

Modi presented reproductions of Nobel laureate physicist C.V. Raman's manuscripts to Merkel, also a trained physicist.

Some of the earliest recognition for Raman's work in the West was in Germany. The scientist's most famous work - the discovery that some light scatters differently from the rest when it comes across atoms - was christened the "Raman effect" by German professor Peter Pringsheim in 1928.

Such well-thought-out gifts are the result of months of research by protocol officials before a head of government visits other key allies.

The French embassy in New Delhi, for instance, managed to dig out a membership form showing Modi had registered to learn French at the Ahmedabad branch of the Alliance Francaise in 1981. "Source of pride for Alliance Francaise cultural network worldwide," French ambassador Francois Richier tweeted yesterday.

But business and investment are the real gifts Modi is eyeing - especially from Germany.

The Prime Minister spent less time in Berlin than in Hannover - where India is the partner country for the world's largest industrial fair.

"My objective of coming to Germany was not only to invite the German industry to India, but to assure them that they would find an open and stable environment, which would be easy to do business in," Modi said today. "And that they will have my full support to invest and work in India."

Modi had announced a special mechanism similar to the one he promised today, when he visited Japan last August. A special team under the Prime Minister's Office is directly handling all Japanese investments in India since that visit.

The Prime Minister also nudged Merkel to ask the European Union to restart talks on a free trade agreement with India - talks that have stood stalled for the past two years. But the two leaders did not discuss the free trade agreement itself, officials said.