New Delhi, April 21 -- India and South Korea on Monday agreed to start negotiations to upgrade their comprehensive evaluation partnership pact against the backdrop of increasing trade disruptions in view of geopolitical upheavals. The two sides announced the decision following talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and South Korean President Lee Jae Myung. News agency Reuters reported that both sides made a commitment to expand cooperation in energy, critical minerals, shipbuilding, semiconductors and steel sectors as they seek to double their trade to $50 billion by 2030. They also agreed to resume and step up negotiations to give new energy to their 2010 trade agreement. The two sides also resolved to work together to ensure peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region. "Following President Lee's visit, we are going to transform our trusted collaboration into a futuristic partnership," Modi said after the talks. Lee is in India for a three-day visit, the first South Korean presidential state visit to the country in eight years. "We decided to upgrade the framework of economic cooperation between the two countries to create a new engine for shared growth," he told reporters after talks. The two countries created a ministerial-level economic cooperation committee for the first time, Lee said, adding that they would strengthen cooperation in areas such as nuclear power plants, clean energy as well as trade and investment. With the Iran war squeezing global energy supplies, India and South Korea would also continue to cooperate to ensure the stable supply of energy resources and key raw materials such as naphtha, he added. Modi said Lee's visit was extremely significant and that the two countries had taken important decisions to boost two-way trade to $50 billion by 2030 from around $27 billion at present. "Today, we are laying the foundation for the success story of the next decade," Modi said. Meanwhile, Union minister of commerce, Piyush Goyal, said he held talks with his South Korean counterpart, Yeo Han-koo, and discussed ways to revamp the trade pact and explored opportunities to deepen cooperation in industry, green energy and digital trade. The two sides also plan to sign a total of 20 private-sector memoranda of understanding on the sidelines of the forum, covering areas including shipbuilding, digital technology and energy, Yonhap said. Separately, South Korea's POSCO Holdings said in a regulatory filing on Monday that its steelmaking unit plans to build a joint venture integrated steel plant with India's JSW in Odisha state. POSCO's investment until end-2031 is expected to be about $1.09 billion, the filing said. The joint venture deal to set up a 6-million-ton-per-annum steel plant in Odisha was announced last week. In a policy seminar at South Korea's parliament last week, Maeng Hyun-chul, a research fellow at Seoul National University's Asia Center, noted India's longstanding complaint of a widening trade deficit with South Korea and said that political ties had not kept pace with commercial ties. South Korea had a $12.8 billion trade surplus last year, with exports worth $19.2 billion and imports of $6.4 billion, according to Korea International Trade Association data. Lee will be visiting Vietnam after India....