External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar discusses climate change and health among other issues at the 4th India-CARICOM ministerial in Guyana
Together with his Jamaican colleague Kaminaj Johnson Smith, Minister of External Affairs S. Jaishankar co-chaired the fourth India-CARICOM ministerial meeting in the capital of Guyana and covered a wide variety of topics to advance collaboration in fields including commerce, agriculture, climate change, and health.
The minister discussed a range of topics during the bilateral discussions, including deepening collaboration, commerce, addressing climate change, digital transformation, advancing the health industries, agriculture, and the International Solar Alliance (ISA).
CARICOM is an international organisation that consists of 15 member states from all across the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean (14 nation-states and one dependency).
In his opening remarks, Jaishankar, on his first visit to Guyana, said that this year India has the privilege of chairing the G-20 and Prime Minister Narendra Modi is very clear that “we will be there not just for ourselves but also for the countries, who are not on the G-20 table.” “This is really a time when we should really be looking at global problems and our own problems and seeing how we can find a solution together,” he said.
During the meeting, Jaishankar proposed that India would like to offer its expertise in the field of small and medium scale industry, small and medium enterprises. “We would be open to supporting on a grant basis; projects, individual projects of up to a value of a million dollars and we would solicit proposals from you,” he was quoted as saying by a statement released by the Ministry of External Affairs.
“What we would like to do is to create a partner group in India which will be from our small and medium enterprises, the Foreign Ministry fronting. And see whether our capability which will include the supply of machinery, of technology, of training, whether if we can get really viable project or offers from your side; we would be very happy to look at that,” he said.
He also noted that there has been a lot of interest in Yoga across the world, especially after Covid.
“So in the case of Yoga too, if there is some way by which we can purpose it towards a much more deeper acceptance for your tourism industry, that is something we would be keen to do, Jaishankar said.
Earlier, in a series of tweets, the External Affairs Minister commented on his meetings with his counterparts from the CARICOM grouping.
“Good to meet Dr Amery Browne, Foreign Minister of Trinidad and Tobago. Spoke about taking forward our development partnership focusing on digital transformation and health domains. Will continue our cooperation at multilateral forums,” he tweeted.
“So nice to meet Foreign Minister Dr Denzil Douglas of St. Kitts and Nevis on the sidelines of the India-CARICOM meeting. Noted our resonance in agriculture and digital domains. Conveyed that India will always voice the concerns of the Global South,” Jaishankar said in a string of tweets.
“Glad to meet FM of St. Vincent and Grenadines Keisal Peters today. Appreciated SVG’s interest in Millets. Also discussed our ongoing projects and further expanding of cooperation,” he added.