Catherine Sasman
18 August 2008
Windhoek — Indian High Commissioner to Namibia, Tsewang Topden, commemorated his country's plural democracy, unity and development progress on the 61st anniversary of India's independence on Friday.
Since becoming independent from Britain, from its over 1 billion people it has 3.2 million elected representatives, 1.2 million of those being female.
India's economic growth has also been exponential as it emerged as an internationally competitive market economy, with its share in global flows of goods, services and knowledge and culture expanding significantly over the past decade.
"India's entrepreneurs and professionals have leveraged these changes to create wealth and employment on an unprecedented scale," said Topden to a gathering of high-level government and diplomatic corps.
The primary challenge for India remains the elimination of poverty and improvement in the living standards of its people, with food insecurity on the rise with the global crunch in food and fuel prices.
India's sphere of influence in Africa has increased markedly, with the India-Africa Forum Summit in New Delhi in April underlining India's intention to broaden its engagement with this continent.
The areas the two blocks have agreed to focus on include human resources and institutional capacity building, education, science and technology, agricultural production and food security, industrial growth, development in the health sector, development of infrastructure, ICT and the establishment of judicial systems with police and defence establishments under civilian control.
The Indian Institute for Foreign Trade will in the near future conduct a two-week programme on capacity building in foreign trade in Namibia, and the two countries have agreed to cooperate in the railway sector.
Recent Indian initiatives in Namibia include the establishments of human settlement centers, technology demonstration and diffusion centers, the construction of demonstration houses and capacity building and training. More than 400 Namibians have undergone training in India.
The two countries have also entered into an agreement to add value to Namibia's rough diamonds, with India ready to set up a diamond cutting and polishing centre in Windhoek to train Namibians.
Moves are underway to boost Indo-Namibian trade and investment. The volume of trade between the two countries is still small, however. During 2005/06 India's exports to Namibia accounted for US$14 million, and imports into India US$20 million. In 2006/07, India's exports to Namibia were US$18.5 million, and Namibian exports were US$3.5 million.
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