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Africa: India Unveils New Plan for Partners on Continent
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Business Daily (Nairobi)
8 April 2008
Posted to the web 8 April 2008
Allan Odhiambo
India unveiled a bag of goodies for African partners attending the first India-Africa summit signalling the extent it is ready to go to win hearts in the natural resource-rich continent.
Key among the offers is duty-free access to India's domestic market and a significant increase in development financing.
"We recognise the importance of market access in securing the development dimension of international trade," India's prime minister Manmohan Singh said during the opening of the India-Africa summit in New Delhi.
Under the new scheme, India will provide preferential market access for exports from 50 developing countries, 34 in Africa.
The preferential arrangement covers 94 per cent of India's total tariff lines and provides preferential market access on tariff lines that comprise 92.5 per cent of global exports of all least developed countries (LDCs).
The scheme covers several products of interest to Africa including cotton, cocoa, aluminium, copper, cashew nuts, cane sugar, ready-made garments, fish fillets and non-industrial diamonds.
"Our co-operation must actively co-opt trade and industry in the processes of growth and development in Africa," Dr Singh said.
India also unveiled plans to double the lines of credit to the continent in the next five years.
Between 2003/04 and 2008/09, India extended credit lines worth $2.15 billion to support various projects in Africa through the Ex-Im Bank of India.
"Over the next five years, we will more than double this amount and offer additional lines of credit amounting to $5.4 billion both bilaterally and to the regional economic communities of Africa," said Mr Singh.
President Kibaki was scheduled to attend the talks but called off his trip at the eleventh hour in the wake of a political stalemate between his Party of National Unity (PNU) and the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) over the formation of a coalition government.
Foreign Affairs minister, Moses Wetangula and senior Trade and Industry ministry officials are representing him at the summit.
India said infrastructure development, Information Technology ( IT), telecoms as well as power generation are top on its agenda for Africa.
India's IT industry is among the most advanced in the world and provides key personnel to America's Silicon Valley.
"We will promote activities of small, medium and micro enterprises by making full use of public-private partnerships," said Mr Singh.
India also plans to boost its aid kitty to Africa with focus on critical areas such as human resource development and capacity building. Mr Singh said grants in the excess of $500 million had been earmarked for implementation of such projects in the next five to six years.
Away from the economic niceties, India also made known its intention to lean on Africa for support in its quest to get a seat in an expanded UN Security Council.
"Our shared vision of the world should enable us to work together on the vital challenges facing humanity. No one understands better than India and Africa the need for global institutions to reflect current realities and to build a more equitable global economy and polity" Dr Singh said.
India has been lobbying for UN reforms that would open the door for greater representation of the developing world in key global institutions.
It is in the race for a permanent seat at the security council together with Germany, Japan, Egypt, Brazil, and South Africa. Of the five permanent members of the UN security council with powers to veto resolutions, three - Britain, France and Russia -support India's case.
The New Delhi meeting ending today offers India a chance to win the support of more African nations.
Though China has aggressively invested in Africa, it remains shackled by economic policies at the expense of humanitarian support.
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A case in point is its perceived laxity to intervene in the Dafuri conflict on the border of Sudan and Chad while it enjoys proceeds from the country's oil wells.
On the education front, India told participants it would strengthen its local capabilities by creating regional and pan-African institutions of higher education, especially in science, IT, vocational training, investment in research and development in renewable energy, and agriculture.
"As an immediate measure, we propose to double our long-term scholarships for undergraduates, postgraduates and higher courses and increase the number of training slots under our technical assistance programmes from 1,100 to 1,600 every year," said the prime minister.
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