India eyes expanded digital and pharmaceutical partnerships with T&T

Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

In­dia’s Min­is­ter of Ex­ter­nal Af­fairs Dr Sub­rah­manyam Jais­hankar says Trinidad and To­ba­go stands to ben­e­fit from deep­er col­lab­o­ra­tion with In­dia in ar­eas rang­ing from dig­i­tal pay­ments and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals to en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty and re­new­able en­er­gy ini­tia­tives.

Speak­ing dur­ing a one-on-one in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia at the Hy­att Re­gency in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day evening, Dr Jais­hankar out­lined In­dia’s vi­sion for strength­en­ing bi­lat­er­al re­la­tions with T&T and the wider Caribbean re­gion.

The In­di­an min­is­ter, who par­tic­i­pat­ed in a two-day of­fi­cial vis­it to this coun­try, said the trip was aimed at ad­vanc­ing dis­cus­sions and de­liv­er­ables fol­low­ing the vis­it of In­di­an Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Mo­di to T&T last year.

“My vis­it to Trinidad and To­ba­go is a step in the di­rec­tion of fur­ther en­hanc­ing bi­lat­er­al en­gage­ment be­tween the two coun­tries,” Jais­hankar said.

He not­ed that dis­cus­sions with Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials in­clud­ed a re­view of the im­ple­men­ta­tion of agree­ments and an­nounce­ments made dur­ing Mo­di’s vis­it, as well as con­tem­po­rary re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al is­sues of mu­tu­al in­ter­est.

Among the ma­jor ini­tia­tives dis­cussed was T&T’s adop­tion of In­dia’s Uni­fied Pay­ments In­ter­face, com­mon­ly known as UPI, a dig­i­tal pay­ment plat­form wide­ly used across In­dia.

Jais­hankar de­scribed T&T as the first coun­try in the Caribbean re­gion to move to­ward adopt­ing the sys­tem.

“We are glad that Trinidad and To­ba­go is the first coun­try in this re­gion to adopt our flag­ship dig­i­tal pay­ment ini­tia­tive, the UPI,” he said, adding that of­fi­cials from In­dia’s NPCI In­ter­na­tion­al Pay­ments Lim­it­ed have al­ready held sev­er­al rounds of dis­cus­sions with lo­cal au­thor­i­ties.

“We hope to see rolling out of UPI in T&T as soon as pos­si­ble.”

The In­di­an for­eign min­is­ter al­so high­light­ed op­por­tu­ni­ties for col­lab­o­ra­tion in the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal sec­tor, not­ing that In­dia re­mains one of the world’s largest sup­pli­ers of af­ford­able gener­ic med­i­cines.

He said the adop­tion of the In­di­an Phar­ma­copoeia by Trinidad and To­ba­go last year paved the way for stronger co­op­er­a­tion.

“The road is clear for a tan­gi­ble col­lab­o­ra­tion in this field,” he stat­ed, not­ing that work was on­go­ing to reg­is­ter In­di­an phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal mol­e­cules lo­cal­ly.

On the en­er­gy front, Jais­hankar said there was sig­nif­i­cant room to ex­pand trade and in­vest­ment be­tween the two na­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly in re­fin­ing and down­stream in­dus­tries.

He re­vealed that dis­cus­sions are cur­rent­ly un­der­way be­tween the Min­istry of En­er­gy and In­dia’s state-owned In­di­an Oil Cor­po­ra­tion re­gard­ing po­ten­tial col­lab­o­ra­tion op­por­tu­ni­ties.

The min­is­ter al­so point­ed to re­new­able en­er­gy and cli­mate re­silience as emerg­ing ar­eas of co­op­er­a­tion, cit­ing ini­tia­tives launched un­der the lead­er­ship of Prime Min­is­ter Mo­di, in­clud­ing the In­ter­na­tion­al So­lar Al­liance and the Glob­al Bio-Fu­el Al­liance, both of which Trinidad and To­ba­go has joined.

Jais­hankar stressed that In­dia views the Caribbean as an im­por­tant strate­gic part­ner de­spite the ge­o­graph­i­cal dis­tance.

“We con­sid­er coun­tries of this re­gion as im­por­tant part­ners, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the con­text of the Glob­al South,” he said.

Ad­dress­ing glob­al geopo­lit­i­cal ten­sions and on­go­ing con­flicts af­fect­ing en­er­gy mar­kets and trade routes, Jais­hankar said coun­tries must build “re­li­able and trust­ed part­ner­ships” to re­duce risks to sup­ply chains and eco­nom­ic sta­bil­i­ty.

“De-risk­ing sup­ply chains, in­clud­ing en­er­gy ones, is vi­tal. Trinidad and To­ba­go can con­tribute in this re­gard,” he added.