India announces USD1 billion Line of Credit to Central Asian Countries for connectivity & other development projects

India announces USD1 billion Line of Credit to Central Asian Countries for connectivity & other development projects

• The second meeting of the India-Central Asia Dialogue was held virtually on 28 October 2020 under the chairmanship of the External Affairs Minister of India Dr S Jaishankar.
• The foreign minister of all the five Central Asian countries- Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and the Kyrgyzstan– participated in the meeting.
• Apart from this, the Acting Foreign Minister of Islamic Republic of Afghanistan also attended the meeting as a special invitee.
• During the meeting, India announced US $ 1 billion line of credit for “priority developmental projects” in Central Asian countries in the fields of connectivity, energy, IT, healthcare, education, agriculture and offered to provide grant assistance for implementation of High Impact Community Development Projects (HICDP) for furthering socio-economic development in the countries of the region.
• The first India-Central Asia Dialogue was held in Uzbekistan’s Samarkand in 2019.