Context: Recently, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, co-chaired the 4th India-CARICOM ministerial meeting with his Jamaican counterpart.

About CARICOM

• The Caribbean Community and common market (CARICOM or CC) is an intergovernmental organisation that is a political and economic union of 15 member states (14 nation-states and one dependency) throughout the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean.

• It was established in 1973.

• CARICOM is the oldest surviving integration movement in the developing world.

• Objective: promote economic integration and cooperation among its members, to ensure that the benefits of integration are equitably shared, and to coordinate foreign policy.

• CARICOM has 15 members including Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, and Trinidad & Tobago.

• The Chairmanship of the Community is rotated every six months among the member countries.

• The CARICOM Single Market and Economy are intended to benefit the people of the region by providing more and better opportunities to produce and sell goods and services and to attract investment.

India-CARICOM 

• Prime Minister of India had a meeting with 14 leaders of the CARICOM group of countries on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York in 2019.

• The meeting deliberated on the steadily intensifying and deepening relations

• India provided immediate financial assistance of USD 1 million to recover from the destruction caused by Hurricane Dorian in the region and the worst-hit island of the Bahamas.

• India announced a USD 14 million grant for community development projects in the CARICOM and another 150 million Line of Credit for solar, renewable energy climate-change-related projects.

• The Government of India funded the US$ 1.166 million information technology and communication infrastructure, computer software and community studio at the CARICOM Secretariat in 2005-2006.

• India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar co-chaired the 4th India-CARICOM ministerial meeting and discussed a range of issues, including trade, climate change and counterterrorism.