During his first visit to Guyana, Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar met with Guyanese Prime Minister Mark Phillips to discuss bilateral cooperation. They focused on energy, disaster resilience and preparedness, and defence, with Jaishankar tweeting that ‘India will partner Guyana in its developmental journey.’ He also visited the East Bank-East Coast Road Linkage Project, where he interacted with workers and senior staff, saying he was ‘impressed by their enthusiasm.’
Earlier, Jaishankar had called on President Irfaan Ali and Vice President Bharat Jagdeo and co-chaired the 5th India-Guyana Joint Commission Meeting with his counterpart Hugh Todd. They held comprehensive discussions on topics like agriculture, defence cooperation, and infrastructure development. Jaishankar said his presence in Guyana was intended to take forward the momentum created by the visits of President Ali and Vice President Jagdeo recently. He tweeted that ‘Strong economics will complement shared values in taking our partnership to a new level,’ underlining the new focus areas agreed upon by President Ali and Prime Minister Narendra Modi were energy, health and pharma, development partnership and capacity building, agriculture, innovation, technology and defence and infrastructure that were the drivers of the India-Guyana ties.
The External Affairs Minister also addressed the India-Guyana Business Round Table, where he appreciated the participation of Foreign Minister Hugh Todd, Finance Minister Ashni Singh and Public Works Minister Deodat Indar. He added that the presence of the Confederation of Indian Industry is a reflection of India’s growing engagement with Latin America. Jaishankar also met with Ramnaresh Sarwan, an Indo-Guyanese origin cricketer, and Steven Jacobs, saying ‘in Guyana, cricket is never far away.’
Finally, Jaishankar met with the Speaker of the National Assembly Manzoor Nadir in Guyana’s Parliament, sharing that ‘our shared histories provide many traditions that bring both nations closer.’
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