NEW DELHI: The Prime Minister of Mauritius, Pravind Kumar Jugnauth, is on a week-long visit to India at the invitation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“India and Mauritius enjoy uniquely close ties, bound by shared history, culture and heritage. The ongoing visit will further strengthen the vibrant bilateral ties,” the MEA said in a statement.
Jugnauth will take part in the ceremony to lay the foundation stone of the WHO-Global Centre for Traditional Medicine in Jamnagar on April 19 and the Global Ayush Investment and Innovation Summit in Gandhinagar on April 20, along with PM Narendra Modi.
PM Jugnauth is also slated to visit Varanasi along with his wife. India has been one of the largest trading partners and exporters of goods and services to Mauritius since 2007.
India’s exports to Mauritius are largely of petroleum products. Besides petroleum products, India’s main exports to Mauritius are pharmaceuticals, cereals, cotton, shrimps and prawns and frozen boneless bovine meat. The main exports of Mauritius to India are vanilla, instruments and apparatus for medical/surgical sciences, needles, aluminum alloys among others.
In January this year, Modi and Jugnauth inaugurated the Social Housing Project, and laid the foundation stones for a Civil Service College and an 8 MW Solar PV Farm project, which, Modi said, “will help mitigate the climate challenges that Mauritius faces as an island country”.
India had extended US$ 353 million to Mauritius in May 2016 as a Special Economic Package for five priority projects, of which the Social Housing Project was the last to be completed
Two agreements were also exchanged -- one for extension of US$ 190 million Line of Credit to Mauritius for the Metro Express and other infrastructure projects and an MoU on the Implementation of Small Development Projects.
In March, Mauritius became a member of the Colombo Security Conclave, a grouping of India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives. The grouping of NSAs from these countries works for regional security by focusing on areas such as maritime security, countering terrorism, combating trans-national crime and cyber security.