India upbeat on PM Modi’s visit to Guyana

NEW DELHI (ANI):

Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) Secretary (East) Jaideep Mazumdar said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s upcoming visit to Guyana marks a significant milestone, being the first visit by an Indian prime minister in over half a century.

He further said that India and Guyana share a longstanding developmental partnership in several fields including fields of health, connectivity, and renewable power.

Mazumdar was addressing the special briefing by MEA on Modi’s visit to Nigeria, Brazil and Guyana.

Mazumdar said, “From Rio, the prime minister will be undertaking a visit to Guyana from November 19-21 at the invitation of President Mohamed Irfaan Ali. This is a visit by an Indian prime minister after more than half a century.”

Elaborating on the Guyana visit, Mazumdar said that the Indian PM will engage in delegation-level talks with President Ali and will also address the National Assembly of Guyana. Mazumdar said, “... he will also address the diaspora. The Indian diaspora in Guyana arrived in 1838, so it is more than 180 years since there has been an Indian presence in Guyana. Today, roughly 40 per cent of the population of 8,00,000 is of Indian origin, and they are a vital link between our two countries.”

Modi will co-chair the CARICOM-India Summit. “At the same time, in Guyana, the prime minister will also co-chair the second India-CARICOM Summit. There will be the leaders of all CARICOM countries present in Guyana for that occasion, as well as the secretary-general of CARICOM. This is only the second summit between India and CARICOM, and the first in a CARICOM country,” Mazumdar said.

“And this is a significant summit, and we expect to have a very rich agenda of cooperation with CARICOM during this summit. We recently had a joint commission meeting at my level with CARICOM countries in which we identified a whole range of areas on which discussions will be carried forward during the summit. These will be examined in detail and areas of cooperation identified in areas such as healthcare, ICT including digital public infrastructure, connectivity, skilling and capacity building, technology and innovation, education, especially in STEM and higher education, and renewable energy,” he added.

The MEA official further said that Guyana is the fastest-growing economy in the world and asserted that India in future will get the opportunity to partner with them in various fields. “It is the fastest-growing economy in the world, and we will have opportunities for partnering with them in diverse fields,” he said.

Diplomatic relations between India and Guyana were established in 1965 when a Commission of India was set up in Georgetown and was made a full-fledged High Commission of India in 1968 after the country got independence on May 26, 1966. Late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi visited Guyana in 1968.