The Hindu Business Line : Africa urged to encourage more investments from India

New Delhi, March 21 The Union External Affairs Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, today outlined a four-point agenda for a new India-Africa partnership so that the trade flows, which had risen from $5 billion in 2001-02 to nearly $25 billion in 2006-07, could be further stepped up.

Delivering the valedictory address at the 4th India-Africa Project Partnership Conclave, jointly organised by the Government of India, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Exim Bank of India here, Mr Mukherjee said foremost for India was that trade and investment go hand in hand.

It is with this in view that Indian companies were making robust investments in Africa in sectors ranging from horticulture and agriculture to power generation and mining. He urged the African friends to encourage Indian industry even more in its efforts.

Second, he said, Africa was generating huge demand for appropriate infrastructure technologies, products, engineering services and capacity building, especially for setting up manufacturing capabilities for local value addition as well as for generating employment. He said that India has offered the benefits or its experience to African countries and remain committed to continue support in areas of strength, including human resource development and capacity building projects.

He cited the case of the Pan African e-network as “India’s genuine effort at sharing our progress in the knowledge sector and helping bridge the digital divide in Africa”.

Third, he said, India has extended bilateral and regional lines of credits on concessional terms to the countries of Africa and promised to do more in this area with the focus being on fostering sustainable socio-economic development in our partner countries.

Fourth, he said, Africa has found merit in regional integration. Though India’s engagement with African countries was focused on bilateral relations in the past, “we have taken initiatives for establishing relationship with the regional economic communities which we see as a most promising area for our larger cooperation”.

Mr Mukherjee also touched upon cooperation between India and African countries on a range of issues including countering the menace of terrorism, reform of the United Nations and climate change

African summit

The Vice-President of Republic of Ghana, Mr Aihaji Aliu Mahama, also extolled the growing cooperation between India and African countries and said the forthcoming African Summit being hosted by India would further demonstrate the commitment and understanding India had been consistently showing to African countries.

The Commerce Secretary, Mr Gopal K. Pillai, in his welcome address, said “we are now at a stage where we can put together an actionable agenda for both India and Africa”. He said India would be willing to partner African countries in setting up structures that would bolster development of small and medium enterprises, besides evolving a system of sharing expertise in microfinance and supporting entrepreneurship development in Africa with Indian industry committed to training in this area.

Four MoUs

At the conclave, four MoUs were signed in the last two days – one between the Ministry of Commerce of India and the Ministry of Trade and Industry, Government of Ethiopia under which Indian industry was invited to set up manufacturing and training facilities, for which access to land and fiscal incentives would be provided.

The second MoU was between CII and the Ethiopian Leather Council with focus on technology transfer and research. The third MoU relates to IL&FS and South Africa on consultancy services provision and the fourth MoU was between CII and Benin Chamber of Commerce for mutual cooperation.

Over and above this, one more MoU has also been agreed in the realm of IT training, involving CII, NIIT and the Kwazulu-Natal in South Africa.

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