Career diplomat Mayank Joshi has been appointed India’s next high commissioner to Jamaica.

In making the announcement today, India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said Joshi is an Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officer of the 2003 batch. At present, he is serving as deputy chief of mission in India’s Embassy in Tokyo.

Joshi is expected to take up the assignment shortly. According to the MEA statement, India and Jamaica have traditionally enjoyed cordial and friendly relations based on common linkages of history, parliamentary democracy, membership in the Commonwealth, English language and the love of cricket.

Jamaica is pushing to strengthen its bilateral relationship with India, appointing Jason Keats Hall in 2021, as its first high commissioner to the Asian country, now regarded as the world’s most populous country.

Hall is adamant to further facilitate the decades-old friendship between the two countries.