NEW DELHI, India (AP):
GUYANA'S PRESIDENT yesterday urged Indian business leaders to invest in his country as a way to gain better access to American markets.
"Guyana will not be a big market for Indian products. But if you are thinking in strategic terms, you can locate in Guyana ... to access markets in North America and to the south," President Bharrat Jagdeo said at a meeting of Indian business leaders.
He said his government is building roads to connect its ports to northern Brazil, so that "any country that wants access to South America can do so through Guyana."
The two countries signed three agreements one in which India extended a US$25 million line of credit and others for cultural and educational exchange programmes.
Jagdeo also inaugurated a Web site that will help people of Indian origin in Guyana trace their ancestral links in India.
Nearly half of the 710,000 people in Guyana like India, a former British colony are descendants of Indian sugarcane farmers who migrated to the South American country in the early 20th century.
TOUR
Jagdeo began his five-day India tour on Sunday by visiting Thakurain Ka Purwa, the tiny, impoverished northern village where his grandfather lived before going to Guyana.
"Coming here is like coming home," Jagdeo told villagers who placed garlands around his neck and showered him with rose petals.
Ram Dulari, the oldest resident of the village, said poverty had forced Jagdeo's grandfather to leave for Guyana in search of work some 90 years ago.
"He was right" to leave, she said. "His grandson is today the president of a country."
