Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day sig­nalled her ad­min­is­tra­tion’s in­ten­tion to ex­pand Trinidad and To­ba­go’s eco­nom­ic re­la­tion­ship with In­dia, de­scrib­ing the South Asian coun­try as a “trust­ed friend and re­li­able part­ner” that shares this na­tion’s de­mo­c­ra­t­ic val­ues and de­vel­op­ment as­pi­ra­tions.

Ad­dress­ing a joint sit­ting of Par­lia­ment in ho­n­our of vis­it­ing In­dia Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Mo­di, Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­marks were punc­tu­at­ed by desk-thump­ing ap­proval, most­ly from the Gov­ern­ment bench.

She de­scribed Mo­di’s two-day vis­it as a sym­bol of South-South diplo­ma­cy and a time­ly call to deep­en bi­lat­er­al co­op­er­a­tion.

Once crit­i­cised in Feb­ru­ary 2021 for by­pass­ing then-prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley to write to Prime Min­is­ter Mo­di di­rect­ly and re­quest COVID-19 vac­cines while serv­ing as op­po­si­tion leader, Per­sad-Bisses­sar ex­pressed ap­pre­ci­a­tion for In­dia’s sup­port dur­ing the pan­dem­ic.

“The cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go al­so ex­press our heart­felt grat­i­tude for In­dia’s com­pas­sion­ate hu­man­i­tar­i­an gift of vac­cines and med­ical sup­plies dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic,” she said.

“When some coun­tries chose to hoard vac­cines and med­ical sup­plies, Shri Mo­di en­sured that the small­est and most vul­ner­a­ble coun­tries around the world re­ceived aid.”

She said bi­lat­er­al trade be­tween the two na­tions reached a record TT$1.2 bil­lion (US$368.96 mil­lion) in the last fis­cal year, with T&T ex­port­ing liq­ue­fied nat­ur­al gas (LNG), am­mo­nia and methanol, and im­port­ing phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, tex­tiles, and in­dus­tri­al goods from In­dia.

“We aim to ex­pand our ex­ports to tap in­to In­dia’s mar­ket of 1.4 bil­lion con­sumers,” she said to re­sound­ing sup­port across the Par­lia­ment cham­ber.

“We are al­so pur­su­ing a Par­tial Scope Trade Agree­ment—the first from a Cari­com coun­try—and lay­ing the foun­da­tion for a new Bi­lat­er­al In­vest­ment Treaty,” she added.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced that her Gov­ern­ment was seek­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion with In­di­an phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal firms, such as the Serum In­sti­tute and Cipla, to es­tab­lish drug man­u­fac­tur­ing fa­cil­i­ties, biotech parks, and telemed­i­cine net­works in this coun­try. These ini­tia­tives, she said, would im­prove health­care re­silience and cre­ate jobs.

“In­dia has al­so pledged sup­port for, among oth­er ini­tia­tives, a Jaipur Foot camp, dial­y­sis units, and sea am­bu­lances; these ini­tia­tives that will di­rect­ly ben­e­fit both Trinidad and To­ba­go,” she stat­ed.

In en­er­gy co­op­er­a­tion, she said lo­cal projects in­volv­ing In­di­an com­pa­nies are un­der dis­cus­sion. T&T, she added, will be join­ing In­dia-led sus­tain­abil­i­ty ini­tia­tives such as the Glob­al Bio­fu­els Al­liance—a mul­ti-stake­hold­er group with 29 coun­tries and 14 in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions fo­cused on pro­mot­ing bio­fu­els as a so­lu­tion for clean en­er­gy and eco­nom­ic growth.

She al­so thanked Mo­di for “pre­sent­ing a so­lar rooftop sys­tem,” de­scrib­ing it as a sym­bol of shared com­mit­ment to re­new­able en­er­gy.

Turn­ing to dig­i­tal co­op­er­a­tion, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “Trinidad and To­ba­go is ho­n­oured to adopt In­dia’s UPI sys­tem and col­lab­o­rate on In­dia Stack tools, such as Aad­haar and Dig­iLock­er, to mod­ernise pub­lic ser­vices.” She thanked In­dia for the do­na­tion of 2,000 lap­tops, which she said will help the coun­try be­come a dig­i­tal hub and em­pow­er the next gen­er­a­tion of tech-savvy youth.

On na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, she wel­comed train­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties un­der In­dia’s ITEC pro­gramme and sup­port for es­tab­lish­ing a re­gion­al foren­sic sci­ence cen­tre. She al­so en­dorsed In­dia’s Sa­chet dis­as­ter alert sys­tem to im­prove the na­tion­al emer­gency re­sponse in­fra­struc­ture.

The Prime Min­is­ter con­clud­ed by em­pha­sis­ing shared cul­tur­al and ed­u­ca­tion­al ties. She an­nounced re­newed aca­d­e­m­ic chairs at UWI in Ayurvedic med­i­cine, ex­pan­sion of the Ma­hat­ma Gand­hi In­sti­tute, and the digi­ti­sa­tion of in­den­ture­ship records on Nel­son Is­land as part of plans to con­vert it in­to a cul­tur­al her­itage site.

More­over, she not­ed that six T&T na­tion­als have re­ceived the Pravasi Bharatiya Sam­man, In­dia’s high­est ho­n­our for per­sons of In­di­an ori­gin liv­ing over­seas.

Be­fore her an­nounce­ments, Per­sad-Bisses­sar opened her re­marks with a ref­er­ence to the Speak­er’s Chair, gift­ed to Trinidad and To­ba­go by In­dia in 1968.

“More than fur­ni­ture, the chair is a liv­ing sym­bol of our shared val­ues—the su­prema­cy of the rule of law, the sanc­ti­ty of democ­ra­cy, and the en­dur­ing be­lief that di­a­logue, not di­vi­sion, must guide us,” she said.

She re­called that 2025 marks 180 years since the first In­di­an in­den­tured labour­ers ar­rived on Nel­son Is­land.

“They crossed the dark wa­ters of the Kala Pani with lit­tle or noth­ing, but they had courage and re­silience,” she beamed.

She con­clud­ed by thank­ing Mo­di for his stead­fast com­mit­ment to the peo­ple of this re­gion, and cham­pi­oned the ex­ist­ing friend­ship be­tween both na­tions.