Around 900 Fijians have benefitted from the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation programme in the last 10 years.

Speaking at the 58th ITEC Day reception at the Indian High Commission in Suva, Attorney General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum says this programme supports the government’s objective to ensure that every Fijian has access to education.

“We are very grateful for the Indian government, the previous leaders who had the vision, to share their knowledge, share the role of technology that they developed, a lot of it is homegrown in India post-independence and to share with the rest of the world in the days of the non-aligned movement.”

Sayed-Khaiyum says India has done a lot for Fiji on a bilateral basis.

The High Commissioner of India to Fiji, Palaniswamy Subramanyan Karthigeyan says this reflects Fiji and India’s special and enduring bond.

“I’m so happy to note that our dear friend Fiji with ITEC shares a very special and enduring bond and has also benefited significantly from this training. Course. And in the last 10 years alone, we have had close to 900 Fijian officials travelling to India for various short-term training courses, which have helped them.”

Karthigeyan says this is their flagship capacity-building programme that offers 15,000 free training slots to more than 160 countries every year.

The ITEC programme was officially launched on September 15th, 1964 – it covers Security and Strategic, Defence Management, Marine and Aeronautical Engineering, Logistics, Management and many other areas of study.