Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi visited Papua New Guinea for his first visit to the country, the first by any Indian prime minister, for the Forum for India-Pacific Islands Cooperation (FIPIC) summit, 2023.
Key points
- This was the third FIPIC summit to be held. On this occasion, he unveiled a comprehensive 12-step initiative aimed at advancing India’s collaborations with the countries in the Pacific region.
- The Forum for India–Pacific Islands Cooperation (FIPIC) was launched during PM Modi’s visit to Fiji in November 2014. FIPIC includes 14 island countries – Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu – that are located in the Pacific Ocean, to the northeast of Australia.
- Despite their relatively small size and considerable distance from India, many of these islands have large exclusive economic zones (EEZs).
- EEZs is the distance up to which a coastal nation has jurisdiction over the ocean, including both living and non-living resources. It generally goes to 200 nautical miles or 230 miles (around 370 km) beyond a nation’s territorial sea.
- FIPIC-I, in 2014, took place at Suva, Fiji’s capital city. At FIPIC-II in 2015 in Jaipur, India again announced similar initiatives.
