19 Nov 2014

India PM on Fiji visit

2:15 pm on 19 November 2014

The Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, is in Fiji on a 24-hour visit at the end of a three-nation tour.

Mr Modi has been met by Fiji's prime minister, Frank Bainimarama, and addressed the public at Albert Park in Suva.

Mr Bainimarama says they have signed three memorandums of understanding.

They are on the exchange of land for a new Fiji chancery building in New Delhi, on diplomatic exchanges that will allow Fiji's diplomats to train in India and on project financing for an electricity co-generation plant funded through the Exim Bank of India.

Mr Modi is the first Indian prime minister to visit Fiji since Indira Gandhi 33 years ago.

Government leaders of Samoa, Tonga, the Cook Islands, Niue, Nauru, Vanuatu and the Federated States of Micronesia are also in Fiji to meet Mr Modi.

The Fiji opposition has been left out of some of the events, which has prompted the Sodelpa Party to boycott parliament as it is to be addressed by the Indian leader.

A Sodelpa MP, Semesa Karavaki, says its action is in protest at Fiji's government leaders.

"They're not ready to consider other interests in this country at the moment, so there is no reason at all why we should be you know, attending all these things, when we are not considered at all by the government as part of it."