Al Ahram Iketassadi P.19 (14-4-2008)

India-Africa Summit and further cooperation

    Given India's vision of the importance of establishing a partnership with Africa in the 21^st century, India's keenness to address the challenges of globalization and the faith that India and Africa share common values and aspirations, India hosted India-Africa Summit Forum on April 8-9, 2008, in which Indian leaders and representatives of 14 African countries participated. At the end of the summit, the participants adopted a plan of action and a joint communiqué.

The Indian MoS for External Affairs Mr. Anand Sharma said, "The summit will help in crystallizing this partnership and open new pathways of cooperation between the two sides."

He added, "We have sent a draft action plan to the countries participating in the summit. The summit will help the pace and spirit of India-Africa ties to gather momentum"

India has shown a clear interest in sharing technology and expertise with Africa and helping the continent in areas of education and human resource development. India has stressed its very special relations with Africa, which are totally different from other countries' relations with the continent. These statements indirectly refer to the other key competitors, such as the US, China, France, UK and Russia.

On the sidelines of the Summit, a huge multicultural concert and a multimedia show were organized. A meeting for senior officials from the participating countries was held ahead of the Summit to discuss the agenda and other preparatory matters. The Summit was also attended by Heads of sub-regional groupings in Africa, such as the Southern African Development Community (SADC), Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the Economic Community for West African States (ECOWAS). Algeria, Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Libya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Zambia are among the countries that attended the Summit.

On the other hand, the Indian press highlighted the clear-cut competition between India and the other major countries over exploiting the resources of the African continent and enhancing economic and commercial relations with the countries of Africa. The Indian media also referred to the huge benefits that China started to reap after Africa-China Summit in Beijing in November 2006. So, India decided to host a similar summit in order to give an impetus to its commercial relations with Africa.

Given the huge unexploited natural resources in Africa, India decided to boost its ties with Africa and not to leave the field for China to play freely and further consolidate its commercial relations with Africa.

India has also shown a great interest in certain items available in Africa, such as oil, coal, cocoa, inorganic chemical materials, raw metals, pearls, precious and semi-precious stones, fertilizers and marble.

In fact, the Indians have realized that Africa has become a growing market for their products and the Chinese products too.

Trade exchange between India and Africa has almost doubled from US$ 5.49 billion in 2001-2002 to US$ 11.82 billion in 2005-2006. Moreover, the latest figures of 2006-2007 indicated that trade exchange has recently registered US$ 12.24 billion.

The competition among countries over cooperation with Africa prompted India to launch E-Network Project to connect the 53 countries of Africa through a satellite and optic fire cables. The project will offer valuable services, such as tele-medicine and tele-education.

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