The G-15 at the Montego Bay (Jamaica) will take stock of its past activities and chalkout its future progress into the 21st century. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee will be leaving for the summit on Sunday, according to official sources here today.

Prior to the meeting at the heads of State and Government, meetings of G-15 foreign ministers and trade ministers will also be held at Jamaica. External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh and Commerce Minister Ram Krishna Hegde will be participating in these meetings.

A composite Indian business delegation from the apex chambers of commerce and industry will be attending the G-15 business events being organised in Jamaica in parallel with the summit. These include:meeting of the G-15 Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry on February 4, Business Investment Forum on February 5 and business exhibition from February 9-14.

As in the past, India is participating on a major scale in the business exhibition. The group of fifteen (G-15) stands for the summit level group of developing countries for South-South consultation and cooperation. The G-15's mandate includes both South-South cooperation and North-South dialogue.

It is expected that the economic and financial crisis that has overtaken several of the emerging economies lately, will receive particular focus during the summit discussions. It will also be an opportune moment to discuss the approach the developing countries can adopt in respect of the issues that are likely to come up at important international conference the third WTO ministerial meeting to be held in the United States later this year.

G-15 countries will have many economic commonalities and complementarities. These could go a long way infostering mutually useful South-South economic cooperation between member countries. India accordingly, assigns high priority in participating in the G-15 process.

At present, India is actively involved with some of the G-15 projects pertaining to gene banks for medicinal and aromatic plants, applications of solar energy including a pilot project for solar energy lighting, vocational training at the Entrepreneur and Technical Development Centre (ETDC) besides small scale industries cooperation with Senegal, Zimbabwe and Nigeria.

At the summit, India will be proposing a new strategic sectors initiative aimed at stepping up the scope and level of cooperation in some core technology areas like telecom, IT, biotechnology, advanced materials and infrastructure development.