In­di­an Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Mo­di ar­rived in Guyana on Wednes­day, mark­ing the first vis­it by an In­di­an leader in more than 50 years to the South Amer­i­can coun­try with di­as­po­ra ties.

Guyana serves as head­quar­ters for the 15-mem­ber Caribbean trade bloc known as Cari­com, and Mo­di was ex­pect­ed to meet with re­gion­al lead­ers Wednes­day as part of the In­dia-Cari­com sum­mit. They last met in 2019.

He ar­rived with promis­es to help the re­gion in ar­eas in­clud­ing health, en­er­gy and agri­cul­ture.

But Mo­di al­so was think­ing of home. Not­ing Guyana’s grow­ing im­por­tance as an oil-pro­duc­ing na­tion af­ter vast quan­ti­ties of oil and gas were dis­cov­ered off its coast in 2015, he said: “Guyana will play an im­por­tant role in In­dia’s en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty.”

Speak­ing af­ter meet­ing with Guyanese Pres­i­dent Ir­faan Ali, Mo­di promised to help Guyana and the re­gion im­prove agri­cul­ture pro­duc­tion, say­ing food se­cu­ri­ty is im­por­tant to is­land na­tions.

Trade be­tween In­dia and Guyana has strength­ened in re­cent years, with In­dia pro­vid­ing Guyana lines of cred­it for mil­i­tary pas­sen­ger planes and fund­ing to buy a fast riv­er fer­ry that ser­vices far-flung jun­gle ar­eas close to neigh­bor­ing Venezuela.

Mo­di al­so not­ed that in­den­tured la­bor­ers from In­dia were brought to Guyana dur­ing the British colo­nial era and now make a sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion to the coun­try. Near­ly 40% of the pop­u­la­tion is East In­di­an.

Mo­di’s vis­it marks the first time an In­di­an prime min­is­ter has come to Guyana since In­di­ra Ghan­di in 1968.

GEORGE­TOWN, Guyana (AP)