Embarking on five day visit VP Naidu vows to strengthen ties with South American nations

New Delhi, May 5: Strengthening the bilateral ties and trade relations, Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu on Saturday morning emplaned for a five-day visit to South America's Guatemala, Peru and Panama, commencing from Sunday.

This is ought to be the first official overseas visit of Vice President Venkaiah Naidu to the Latin American regions which will tighten the relations with discussion mainly focusing on bilateral trade and investments. During the visit, the Vice President is scheduled to hold meetings at the highest levels in the three countries.

 

Further, he will interact with a score of respective parliamentarians of Guatemala, Peru, and Panama.He will be accompanied by a high-level delegation, including Minister of State for Tribal Affairs Jasvantsinh Sumanbahi Bhabhor, four Members of Parliament and senior officers of the Government of India, as said in a press release issued by the Ministry of External Affairs on May 3.

 

Vice President Naidu will also visit various eminent universities of the three countries and further meet members of the Indian diaspora residing in the three countries.

 

The Vice President will first travel to Guatemala on May 6 in what would be the highest-level visit from either side. The visit would focus on various areas of mutual cooperation such as protection of wildlife, human resource and training, and information technology among others. 

The Vice President will reach Panama on May 7 for the second leg of his visit.

Panama was the first Central American nation to establish diplomatic relations with India in 1962. India looks at Panama as the link to Central and Latin American countries as it is the major logistics and financial hub and is known as the Singapore of the region. Panama has the highest presence of Indian diaspora of 15,000.

Agriculture, education and economic cooperation will be the key focus areas during the vice president’s discussions with the leadership there.

 

The third and final leg of the Vice President’s visit will be to Peru. Talks with the leadership there will cover the entire spectrum of bilateral relations, including trade, commerce investment, IT, medicine, space, defence and culture. India-Peru bilateral trade of about three billion dollars is the highest among these three countries. Peru has become the founding member of International Solar Alliance in the formation of which Indian has played the lead role.

 

India’s presence in all the three countries has been strong and the PM Modi’s visit in the year 2014 has strengthened the relations even further. The visit of Vice president of India in all these countries will further deepen the relations and focus to create a strong base of logistics, bio technology, solar alliance, culture, mining, pharmacy as far as India’s collaboration with these three areas are concerned.