The Indian High Commissioner to Fiji Palaniswamy Karthigeyan says the high-level political exchanges and engagement between Fiji and India has led to expansion and deepening of the ties across all domains in both countries.
While celebrating India’s 78th Independence Day yesterday, he said India was a proud friend of Fiji.
“Our relationship based on mutual respect, trust, cooperation and very strong people to people relations continue to grow steadily,” Mr Karthigeyan said.
“In the last 18-19 months there has been an unprecedented increase in the number of high-level political exchanges leading to a very strong trajectory in our engagement, strengthening our foreign engagement.
“This has led to expansion and deepening of our ties across all domains.”
He said India was a significant development partner of Fiji and was recognised for its role in contributing to the socio-economic development of Fiji.
“We at the High Commission of India are immensely proud to represent our country in this great nation and are proud to be given the responsibility of steering this relationship and we see a lot of potential in this relationship.
“There is a tremendous amount of potential across all domains.”
Mr Karthigeyan said as developing countries, Fiji and India shared a lot of challenges and aspirations.
“Ours is a very ideal kind of relationship, a natural kind of relationship and partnership.
“My message to our friends here in Fiji and also in other three juridical countries which our mission represents here — Kiribati, Tonga and Tuvalu, is that we are fully committed, and we reiterate our very strong commitment to working together for the mutual benefit of the people of both the countries.”