New Delhi: The Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, James Marape, will personally welcome Prime Minister Modi at the airport upon his arrival today. While the country typically doesn't provide a ceremonial welcome for leaders arriving after sunset, a special exception has been made for PM Modi. He will be accorded a full ceremonial welcome, reported news agency ANI.
Currently, PM Modi is in Japan's Hiroshima to attend the Group of Seven or G7 Summit.
After attending the annual summit of the G7 advanced economies under the Japanese Presidency in the historic city of Hiroshima, PM Modi will travel to Port Moresby in, Papua New Guinea, which is his first tour, as well as the first-ever visit by any Indian Prime Minister to the Indo-Pacific country.
During the visit, he will host the third Summit of the Forum for India-Pacific Islands Cooperation (FIPIC III Summit) jointly with Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea James Marape on May 22.
Launched in 2014, the FIPIC involves India and 14 Pacific Island Countries (PICs) - Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Tuvalu, Kiribati, Samoa, Vanuatu, Niue, Federated States of Micronesia, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Cook Islands, Palau, Nauru and the Solomon Islands.
A Ministry of External Affairs release said that Prime Minister Modi will have bilateral engagements in Papua New Guinea, including meetings with Governor-General Sir Bob Dadae and Prime Minister James Marape.
After concluding his visit to Papua New Guinea, PM Modi will travel to Sydney despite the cancellation of the Quad Leaders' meeting. He will arrive in Australia on May 23.
G7 Summit
In an address at a session of the G7 summit in Hiroshima, PM Modi on Saturday called for building an inclusive food system to provide relief to the world's most vulnerable people as part of his 10-point action plan to address challenges in the area of food, fertilisers, and healthcare.
The prime minister's 10-point action plan included curbing the wastage of food, depoliticisation of global fertilizer supply chains, promoting millets, encouraging holistic healthcare, strengthening digital healthcare, and building development models inspired by the needs of developing countries.
Notably, India is not a part of the G7 nations but PM Modi is taking part in the summit at the invitation of Japanese PM Fumio Kishida.
Quad Summit
Meanwhile, the third in-person Quad Summit held Saturday in Hiroshima, Japan, laid out an expansive agenda in a strong signal to China but again not explicitly naming the country in the leaders joint statement. All four leaders of the member countries vowed to take it to the next level from setting up an undersea cable, to critical supply chains and to countering terrorism.
The Quad Summit, which was earlier scheduled to take place in Australia, was held on the margins of the G7 meeting. Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced at the meeting that India will host the next in-person Quad Summit in 2024. The Summit venue changed to Japan due to US President Joe Biden’s change of itinerary as he had to be back home to attend debt crisis talks.
The Quad countries are the US, India, Japan, and Australia.
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