By Manish Chand
Port of Spain, Nov 27 (IANS) Prime Minister Manmohan Singh began his three-day visit to the Caribbean nation with a call to nearly a million persons of Indian origin in this region to be “active partners” in “a new India” and lauded overseas Indians for promoting Brand India.

“Today’s India is on the move, just as the people of Indian origin are on the move. India is reaching out to the world with confidence and in a spirit of live and let live,” Manmohan Singh told over 400 people at a reception organized in his honour at the grand Crowne Plaza hotel Thursday.

“In reaching out to People of Indian Origin, we are also reaching out to the world. You are, for millions of Indians, the most visible symbol of our own globalization,” he said to ringing applause from Indo-Trinidadians who had gathered in large numbers to listen to the economist-turned-prime minister.

Manmohan Singh arrived in the Trinidadian capital Thursday afternoon on a three-day visit to attend the 53-nation Commonwealth summit that will be dominated by discussions on climate change. Trinidad and Tobago is home to around 500,000-strong Indian diaspora who comprise 42 per cent of 1.3 million population.

Lauding PIOs, with many them living in the Caribbean nation here for four generations, Manmohan Singh invited them to use new investment and business opportunities that India offers and asked them to proactively shape a new India.

“I invite you to be active partners of a new India and walk with us in finding new pathways of development and progress. I invite you to feel the love and affection of Mother India and feel the warmth of her embrace,” he said.

Manmohan Singh showered praise on the PIOs for taking the lead in creating knowledge economy that has raised its global profile. “It is often said that the 21st century will be the knowledge century. Overseas Indians have played an extremely important role in global brand building in this respect,” he said.

“If India is today viewed as a “knowledge economy” it is because of the reputation that people of Indian origin worldwide have earned through their creativity and diligence,” he stressed.