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India offers Africa five billionn dollars grant to boost ties
Indian government has announced a five billion dollars credit line for the next three years to support Africa’s development goals.
India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh made this announcement at the on-going Africa-India Forum Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital.
He also announced an additional grant of 700 million dollars for the establishment of new institutions and training programmes across the continent.
The grant
He said that the grants were part of his government’s efforts aimed at supporting Africa’s infrastructure development, regional integration, capacity building and human resource development.
“Under the lines of credit that we offered at the summit, we had specifically looked at promoting regional integration through infrastructure development. On the advice of African Union, I am happy to announce that we will support the development of a new Ethio-Djibouti Railway line to the tune of 300 million dollars for this important regional project,” he said.
India-Africa relationship
According to him, India will be happy to increase the access of African airlines to Indian cities in a significant manner over the next three years.
The Prime Minister noted that since the first Africa-India summit in New Delhi in 2008, trade between the two partners had increased.
He said: “Last year, India's imports from Africa were worth 20.7 billion dollars compared with 18.7 billion dollars the previous year, and its exports stood at 10.3 billion dollars the same year.”
Education
Singh also proposed that following the success of the Pan-African E-Network Project, the next step of establishing an India-Africa Virtual University would be taken.
This, he said, India hoped will help to meet some of the demand in Africa for higher studies in India institutions.
“We further propose that 10,000 new scholarships under this proposed University will be available for African students after its establishment,” he stressed.
Resource development
He also proposed the establishment of new institutions at the Pan African level to focus on capacity building in the human resource development sector.
The proposed new institutions include an India-Africa Food Processing Cluster to contribute to value-addition and the creation of regional and export markets and an India-Africa Integrated Textiles Cluster, to support the cotton industry and its processing and conversion into high value products.
Others include India-Africa Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting, to harness satellite technology for the agriculture and fisheries sectors as well as contribute towards disaster preparedness and management of natural resources, and the India-Africa University for Life and Earth Sessions and an India-Africa Institute of Agriculture and Rural development.
Commendation
Chairman of the AU and the President of Equatorial Guinea, Toedoro Obiang Nguema, and the AU Commission Chairperson Jean Ping commended the benefits that had accrued to both partners since it began in 2008.
The Summit which ends on Wednesday May 25 is being attended by Vice President Namadi Sambo among other Heads of state.
NAN/Shakira
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