Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says Gov­ern­ment in­tends to fol­low up on an of­fer made by In­dia’s Ex­ter­nal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Sub­rah­manyam Jais­hankar for a po­ten­tial line of cred­it to Trinidad and To­ba­go, de­scrib­ing his re­cent vis­it as “ex­treme­ly mean­ing­ful and pro­duc­tive.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar made the com­ment yes­ter­day while re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia about Dr Jais­hankar’s of­fi­cial two-day vis­it to T&T.

Dur­ing a di­as­po­ra event on Sat­ur­day, Dr Jais­hankar said In­dia was in­ter­est­ed in of­fer­ing T&T a line of cred­it.

The Prime Min­is­ter said the Gov­ern­ment would pur­sue dis­cus­sions on the mat­ter, but did not pro­vide fur­ther de­tails.

As­sess­ing the over­all vis­it, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said it was “high­ly suc­cess­ful, sub­stan­tive and for­ward-look­ing,” adding that the en­gage­ments fo­cused on prac­ti­cal out­comes rather than sym­bol­ism.

“It reaf­firmed the deep his­tor­i­cal, cul­tur­al and diplo­mat­ic re­la­tion­ship shared be­tween our two na­tions, while al­so de­liv­er­ing prac­ti­cal out­comes that will di­rect­ly ben­e­fit our peo­ple,” she said.

Among the key out­comes high­light­ed by the Prime Min­is­ter was In­dia’s do­na­tion of 2,000 lap­top com­put­ers to sup­port stu­dents and ex­pand dig­i­tal ac­cess and learn­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties in T&T.

She al­so point­ed to health­care co­op­er­a­tion through the Jaipur Pros­thet­ic Limb Fit­ment Pro­gramme and the launch of the Na­tion­al Pros­thet­ics Cen­tre in Pe­nal, which she said would pro­vide “life-chang­ing as­sis­tance” to cit­i­zens re­quir­ing pros­thet­ic care and mo­bil­i­ty sup­port.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar fur­ther not­ed that In­dia do­nat­ed agro-pro­cess­ing equip­ment val­ued at ap­prox­i­mate­ly $1 mil­lion to as­sist with agri­cul­tur­al pro­duc­tion, food pro­cess­ing and eco­nom­ic op­por­tu­ni­ties with­in the sec­tor.

The Prime Min­is­ter said the vis­it al­so strength­ened diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions be­tween both coun­tries, while ex­pand­ing dis­cus­sions on co­op­er­a­tion in health­care, ed­u­ca­tion, tech­nol­o­gy, agri­cul­ture, en­er­gy and trade. 

“In­creased en­gage­ment in busi­ness and in­vest­ment co­op­er­a­tion aimed at sup­port­ing eco­nom­ic growth, job cre­ation and de­vel­op­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties for Trinidad and To­ba­go was an­oth­er ma­jor ben­e­fit aris­ing from the vis­it,” she said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar added that the en­gage­ments re­in­forced long­stand­ing cul­tur­al and peo­ple-to-peo­ple ties root­ed in “shared his­to­ry, her­itage and mu­tu­al re­spect.”

She al­so wel­comed Dr Jais­hankar’s pledge to re­vis­it T&T in the near fu­ture, say­ing it re­flect­ed the im­por­tance In­dia places on the bi­lat­er­al re­la­tion­ship and the pos­i­tive mo­men­tum gen­er­at­ed dur­ing the vis­it.

Be­yond the of­fi­cial meet­ings, the Prime Min­is­ter said there was “a gen­uine spir­it of friend­ship and mu­tu­al un­der­stand­ing” through­out the en­gage­ments, while Trinidad and To­ba­go was able to show­case its “warmth, di­ver­si­ty and hos­pi­tal­i­ty.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said both gov­ern­ments had agreed to con­tin­ue dis­cus­sions at diplo­mat­ic, min­is­te­r­i­al and tech­ni­cal lev­els to ad­vance ini­tia­tives launched dur­ing the vis­it.

The Prime Min­is­ter reaf­firmed Gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to build­ing strong in­ter­na­tion­al part­ner­ships that “im­prove lives, cre­ate op­por­tu­ni­ties and po­si­tion Trinidad and To­ba­go pos­i­tive­ly on the glob­al stage.”

“Our re­la­tion­ship with In­dia is one of tremen­dous val­ue, and we look for­ward to strength­en­ing it even fur­ther in the years ahead,” she added.