India has natural bonding with Latin America, Caribbean: Jaishankar

India has a natural bonding and convergence of interests on key global issues with Latin American and Caribbean countries and New Delhi's focus has been on expanding the two-way engagement in a range of areas, including trade, investment and climate change, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has said.

In an address at an event on Wednesday, Jaishankar said the volume of India's annual trade with Latin America and Caribbean stands at USD 50 billion plus (one billion =100 crore) and it is growing further.

''And just to put that in perspective, our four big trade accounts, which are the US, China, European Union and ASEAN, are somewhere between 100 to 110-115 billion dollars. So, already Latin American and Caribbean has come up to half the level of the highest set of trade partners that India has,'' he said.

The external affairs minister was speaking at a conference on Latin America and Caribbean at the India International Centre on Wednesday.

Jaishankar said the views of India and most countries in Latin America and Caribbean on key global issues are very similar.

''Many of you would also be aware that over the years, we have actually done a lot of development partnerships abroad. Obviously, all these are with developing countries. Most of them are, of course, just in terms of numbers and value in our immediate vicinity,'' he said. ''But even already where Latin America and Caribbean is concerned, we have 40 lines of credit and roughly our commitment is about 900 million dollars in these projects,'' Jaishankar said.

He said there is a natural and convergence of interests between the two sides there as there has been a legacy of working together on many key issues, according to the text of his speech released on Thursday by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA).

''I must also tell you, barring a few foreign ministers, I think I have the WhatsApp number of almost everybody in Latin America and Caribbean. And even during Covid, probably there was not a single minister to whom I did not have at least one conversation,'' Jaishankar said. ''So I'm saying that to you not to demonstrate my WhatsApp skills, but actually to tell you today, you know, the need for those contacts, the fact that, ministers, take out time and speak to each other. There is something shifting out there, which should be relevant,'' he said.

In the course of his address, Jaishankar presented a detailed account of India's engagement with Latin American and Caribbean countries, including in areas of capacity building, and highlighted the importance New Delhi attaches to the region.

''I want to just emphasise, you know, we have a goal of moving India towards becoming a leading power. And to be a leading power, we have to start developing at least the footprint of being global at some point of time and we can't do that unless we are able to reach every region and not reach it superficially, but have relationships that really count out their investments of substance, cooperation that is really noteworthy,'' he said.

''That is the direction from an Indian perspective that we are looking at the region and therefore, I thought it is important, I shared this with you,'' he added.