A 35,000 km overland expedition from Arctic to Antarctic is the latest enterprise by India to build ties with resource-rich Latin America.

Led by explorer Akhil Bakshi, the four-month expedition will start this week at Dead Horse Creek on the Arctic Ocean in Alaska and pass through the US west coast before entering Latin America and ending at Cape Horn, the southernmost tip of the continent.

Foreign minister Salman Khurshid said the initiative is supported by MEA and that Indian missions across the continent have been asked to facilitate the self-financed journey being undertaken by Bakshi and his companion Rajendra Jain, a surgeon.

"We will have to break out of the old model of government support (financial) even in the field of cultural diplomacy," Khurshid said while briefing reporters about the expedition.

On the importance of the Latin American region for India, he said, "Latin America is something we need to work on. We just have not had enough bilateral visits. They have made more visits than we have and we need to reciprocate that."

The focus of the expedition, named Pangea One World, will be climate change, said Bakshi. "During the journey, meetings will be held with environment scientists, metrologists, hydrographers and agronomists to study action being taken by various countries on monitoring the status of climate change and on their preparedness to meet the challenge," said Bakshi, who will present a report to the ministry of environment and forests on his findings during the expedition.

As the rupee suffers a free fall, India is hoping that at least its exports will receive a boost and for that it is looking to widen its trade arrangements with countries in South America. It is already offering fiscal sops to exporters who are willing to explore markets in the continent.

"We can do with a little more awareness about India in a continent we hardly have any people to people contact with and in that way we believe this expedition will indeed help," said a foreign ministry official.

The expedition will pass through the US, Mexico, Guatemala, Antigua, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama, Ecuador and Argentina.