SPEECHES / STATEMENTS 

Inaugural address by EAM at Conference on “Indian Lines of Credit: An Instrument to Enhance India-Africa Partnership”

November 22, 2011

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

It gives me pleasure to be here this morning with you to address this Conference attended by representatives from over 40 African countries. It is indeed heartening to note the overwhelming response to our invitation.

We are here today on a common platform to discuss how India and African countries can work together to achieve the goals of ensuring inclusive growth and sustainable development. We face similar challenges in transforming our economies for the well-being and prosperity of our people.

There are striking complementarities that exist between Africa's requirements and India's capabilities in many areas. I am confident that our partnership will continue to grow as we move forward on this path. Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, while addressing the Second India-Africa Forum Summit earlier this year, observed “India will work with Africa to realize its vast potential. We believe that a new vision is required for Africa’s development and participation in global affairs”. In this spirit, India is ready to share its experience with our African brothers and sisters.

African economy expanded by 4.5% in 2010. Indian economy expanded by around 8% in the same period. India and Africa together comprise a market of 2.2 billion people with a combined GDP of 3 trillion US Dollars. Trade between India and Africa, which stood at 11.9 billion Dollars in 2005-06, increased to 53.3 billion US Dollars last year. There has been an increase in investments in both directions as well.

All this, of course, is impressive but there is still vast potential for further growth. India is engaging with Africa at bilateral, regional as well as continental levels. The India-Africa Forum Summits have lent a contemporary dimension to our relations.

Our economic engagement is directed at meeting the socio-economic development aspirations of developing countries in the spirit of South-South cooperation. This takes several forms, including Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) programmes, that are tailor-made to respond to the capacity-building needs of our partner countries. Several initiatives under our Focus Africa Programmes underline our political commitment to build mutually beneficial partnerships.

Lines of Credit are an important instrument in this context and are the focus of this Conference. At the India-Africa Forum Summit in May this year, Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh had announced five billion US Dollars over the next 3 years under lines of credit to help Africa achieve its development goals. These LOCs provide support at highly concessional terms to LDCs and Developing countries in the African continent.

We note a great deal of interest from our partners to cooperate in this framework. As we take our cooperation forward, it is of paramount importance that we follow transparent and fair selection procedures based on competitive bidding for award of contracts and execution of them. Such transparency will ensure best value for money and quality of delivery under the scheme.

I believe that you will be having detailed discussions on our policies, procedures and methodology on how to access and make best use of Indian Lines of Credit. We value your inputs and hope that you will find the discussion useful and enriching. I am sure that the experiences to be shared during the Conference by the senior officials of the Ministry of External Affairs, Ministry of Finance, EXIM Bank and CII would add immense value to the deliberations today. The perspectives of the visiting representatives from the African countries, who are the prime actors for taking advantage of the Indian LOCs, would also be of enormous use for the Indian side.

I wish success in your deliberations during this Conference.

Thank you.