PM Modi to hold summits with Caribbean and Pacific Island nations

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will participate in two summits — The India-Caribbean (CARICOM) Island Summit and the Forum for India-Pacific Islands Cooperation (FIPIC) — on September 26 on the sidelines of the upcoming United Nations General Assembly session in New York.

The primary focus of these summits will be on climate change, blue economy and how India can partner in their development needs amid China’s inroads in these regions, ET has learnt. This is the first India-Caribbean Island Summit, with India increasingly seen as a nonexploitative development partner.

Ahead of the summit, India’s envoy to the United Nations, Syed Akbaruddin, met his counterparts from the Caribbean countries as India plans to focus on Caribbean and Latin American countries over the next five years.


Over the years, India has increased its political engagement with the Caribbean island countries, which have a decent Indian diaspora whose ancestors were taken there by the colonial Britain as indentured labourers.

The first FIPIC summit took place in 2014 when Modi visited Fiji, while the second one was held in Jaipur in 2015. FIPIC engagement is a key pillar of India’s Act East Policy. Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Niue, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu are part of the 14 countries that form the FIPIC group.