Accompanied by a high level official and business delegation, the Vice President and Foreign Minister Marta Lucía Ramírez of Colombia are reaching India, late Thursday night, early Friday morning.
The visit follows the recently concluded visit of MOS of External Affairs Meenakshi Lekhi to the South American nation earlier this month, and in that visit the two countries had inked a MOU Outer Space Cooperation for peaceful purposes.
On her agenda is meeting with top leadership of the country as well as external affairs minister S Jaishankar as well as a meeting with MOS Lekhi. This is expected to be their second meeting within a month.
The 35 member delegation is going to be in India for almost a week during which besides New Delhi, the visiting leader is expected to visit Hyderabad, Pune and Bengaluru.
More about the Delegates
The 35 member delegation will have Minister of Science and Technology Tito José Crissien; Minister of Health Fernando Ruiz. There will be representatives of several pharmaceutical companies who are interested in collaborating with the Indian pharma sector for vaccines for COVID-19, Dengue, Chikungunya virus infection, Influenza and other infections. There will be representatives of National University; some private institutions; and companies seeking affordable medical devices and medicines for tropical disease, cancer and other health issues.
The delegation is being led by Vice President Marta Lucía Ramírez, who also heads the Colombian Space Commission (CCE).
Agreements to be inked
According to diplomatic sources the two sides are expected to ink some agreements in the health sector.
Visit to other cities
Operationalising the MOU the two countries have inked earlier this month will be on the agenda of the visit of the Vice President accompanied by her senior officials and others to Bengaluru. She will be meeting with the Chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and also discuss launching of satellites and sharing best practices.
In Hyderabad and Pune the delegations will be meeting with various pharma companies and seek cooperation and expertise in various aspects of the Health care sector. And this includes capacity building, participating in clinical trials as well as affordable medical devices.
As reported earlier, a top diplomat of the South American nation told Financial Express Online “Manufacturing vaccines under the PPP model is a priority for India. And towards this agenda an agreement with ICMR is slated to be inked.”
“India is known as the Pharmacy of the world. We want to get help in know-how which would help us in setting up the eco-system for production in our country,” the top diplomat told Financial Express Online.
The two sides have identified several sectors including women empowerment, defence and security; bio-technology, agriculture and sports as well as education.
Both sides are already working together in the energy sector in various aspects including refining, purification and exploration and processing.