The Second India-CARICOM Summit opened today at the Guyana Marriott Hotel with the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi offering CARICOM 1,000 additional scholarships.
The scholarships will be offered by India through the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) Programme over a period of five years.
Prime Minister Modi said in addition to the scholarships, India will also be expanding its Technical Development Centre to accommodate all of the countries in the Caribbean Community.
“In order to promote the technical training, and skill development of youth, we have set up a technical development centre. We will expand its scale and size so that it can be used by all CARICOM countries. We will also work on creating a forensic centre for the CARICOM region,” Prime Minister Modi said.
He said India also has an Integrated Government Online Training (IGOT) portal in place that facilitates online courses, and the country would be more than happy to create a similar portal for CARICOM countries.
As he addressed the Regional leaders, including the Chairman of CARICOM, Prime Minister of Grenada Dickon Mitchell; and CARICOM Secretary-General, Dr Carla Barnett, Prime Minister Modi also extended a hand of partnership, proposing collaboration in areas such as technology, and innovation, commerce, agriculture, maritime, energy, culture, health and security.
In the area of renewable energy, India has offered to power Government buildings in the CARICOM Region using solar power.
“We are investing in a big way in the area of renewable. We propose that we can make at least one government building solar powered in each of the CARICOM countries,” Prime Minister Modi said.
He said too as a technology and start-up hub, India has employed a range of technological solutions to support both public and private entities. These technologies, he said, have stood the test of time, and continue to be in use around the world.
One such system is the Unified Payments Interface (UPI). Prime Minister Modi said together, India and CARICOM can work to transfer that and other technologies to countries within CARICOM.
“Today in India, direct benefit transfers are being made to millions of people with just one click. Countries like UAE, Singapore, Shri Lanka, France and Mauritius are now connected UPI, that is to the Unified Payment Interface made in India. It is my suggestion that we work together for its adoption by CARICOM countries as well. For, the common man to be able to store all documents carefully, we have made cloud based digilocker platform, we can start this as a pilot project in CARICOM countries as well,” he explained.
He also highlighted opportunities in the agriculture sector using technology, as well as in the areas of maritime, and maritime security, health, and culture.
The last India-CARICOM summit was held five years ago.
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