PM to attend India-Africa meet in Ethiopia next month

Sixteen heads of governments and states will take part in the India-Africa summit to be held in Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa from May 20-27.

Sixteen heads of governments and states will take part in the India-Africa summit to be held in Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa from May 20-27. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will attend the summit on May 20 and 25, while external affairs minister SM Krishna will have bilateral meetings with foreign ministers of 45 African nations from May 20-26.

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A series of bilateral meetings and a visit to Tanzania after the summit entails Prime Minister’s programme as New Delhi is stepping up efforts towards its multi-sectoral engagements with the continent.

And at a time when China has made heavy inroads into Africa, New Delhi plans focus primarily on infrastructure, capacity-building and human resources development, government officials said.

At the first India-Africa summit held in New Delhi in April 2008, an action plan was put in place to promote engagement with African countries.

India had also announced a line of credit of US $5.4 billion for the African countries for a five-year period (2014-2015).

“We are staying on course. And our aim is to do more of what we have been doing there, after all we are neighbours across the Indian ocean,” said an official.

Indian trade with Africa touched $45 billion last year. And Indian officials say the investments across the continent are worth more than $45 billion. India is also looking at Africa through the prism of energy security, and Nigeria and Sudan are key nations from which India imports a considerable amount of petroleum products.