S Jaishankar proposes micro projects to Caribbean nations

New Delhi, April 22

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External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar offered to the 15 Caribbean nations a proposal to support on a grant basis projects up to $1 million in the field of small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

“What we would like to do is create a partner group in India which will be from our SMEs, with the Foreign Ministry fronting,” he said while suggesting areas such as machinery, technology and training.

“If we can get a really viable project or offers from your side, we would be very, very happy to look at that,” he said, while pointing out that work had been going on in some areas, like agriculture, for years. “We actually have an MoU between the Caribbean Agriculture Research Institute and counterpart in India. It has not been operationalised for some reason. I do think it might be in our mutual interest to do so,” he said in Georgetown, the capital of Guyana.

As Covid has brought out the importance of health security, Jaishankar said India would expand a domestic initiative on cost effective generics, which would benefit low-income consumers. The Foreign Ministers from St Kitts and Nevis, The Bahamas, Belize, Barbados, Suriname, Jamaica, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Guyana, Saint Lucia, Grenada and Trinidad and Tobago interacted during the event.

This was the 4th India-CARICOM ministerial meet which was co-chaired by Jaishankar and his Jamaican counterpart Kaminaj Smith. Jaishankar also had separate bilateral meetings with counterparts from Trinidad and Tobago, St Kitts and Nevis, St Vincent and Grenadines, Grenada, and Barbados.