Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance, Professor Biman Prasad is currently in India for high level bilateral meetings.
Yesterday he met with the Minister for External Affairs, Dr S Jaishankar, the Minister of State in External Affairs, Dr Rajkumar Ranjan Singh and the Vice Chairman, National Institution for Transforming India, Suman Berry on Monday in New Delhi.
He thanked the Government of India for their unwavering support and cooperation with Fiji and re-affirmed the Coalition Government’s commitment to develop more closer, meaningful and deeper ties with democratic partners like India that share the common values and principles of genuine democracy, rule of law, human rights, media freedom and mutual strategic interests to ensure peace and security in the Indo Pacific region.
The Deputy Prime Minister noted that for the past year, Fiji and India have held multiple high level discussions in Delhi and in Bangalore which was followed by the Foreign Minister of India also visiting Fiji for the World Hindi Conference in Fiji and later Prime Minister Modi’s visit to the Pacific and his announcements on the support to Fiji and the Pacific, including the 100 bed tertiary care hospital.
He said work on the hospital is progressing well and is expected to begin as soon as possible.
Dr Jaishankar highlighted that Fiji and India share a very close, progressive and deep relationship and assured Government of India’s support in building closer economic cooperation and strengthening collaboration in areas of mutual strategic interest.
Discussions also focused on potential future bilateral cooperation in area of health, tourism, economic development, capacity building and development, cultural development and education and curriculum development and renewable energy transition.
Prof Prasad further thanked the Government of India for its continued support and commitment to Fiji over the years including, vaccines, disaster reliefs, education and training, MSME business grant support.
In his meeting with Berry, Prof Prasad highlighted the development challenges Fiji faced as a small island nation and how NITI Aayog could assist in strengthening the Strategic Planning Office, within the Ministry of Finance in areas of national planning, policy formulation, monitoring and evaluation and becoming a think tank of the Pacific.
During the week, DPM Prasad will attend the Global South Ministerial Energy Roundtable and high-level panel discussion, Energy Week India and discussion on decarbonization of economies and other meetings in Gujarat with potential investors and Ayodhya.
He is accompanied by the Permanent Secretary of Finance and other senior officials from the Ministry of Finance and Fiji’s High Commission in India.
