Second India-CARICOM Summit begins in Guyana

The second India-Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Summit is scheduled to take place in Guyana on Wednesday, with at least 14 CARICOM leaders expected to attend. The summit will be co-chaired by India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is arriving in Guyana from Brazil after attending the G20 Summit.

CARICOM Chairman and Prime Minister of Grenada, Dickon Mitchell, will also be speaking at the conference, along with the host country’s President Dr. Irfaan Ali and CARICOM Secretary General Dr. Carla Barnett. This one-day summit highlights the strengthening of ties between India and the Caribbean nations.

While CARICOM has not publicly indicated who is the regional leader not expected to be present physically, the CARICOM Secretariat described the summit as “historic” saying it will be the “first stand-alone Meeting between the Heads of Government of the two sides to be convened in a CARICOM member state.”

It said that the “engagement is expected to strengthen an already strong relationship in areas such as economic cooperation, agriculture and food security, health and pharmaceuticals, and science and innovations.

CARICOM leaders and India’s Prime Minister last met in 2019 in the margins of the 74th Session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) where they discussed cooperation modalities in renewable energy and climate change through a US$150 million credit line from India.