By IANS
New Delhi : India is keen to share its expertise with Africa and help countries in the continent to enhance their profiles in industry, trade and investment, Commerce Minister Kamal Nath said Monday.
“India’s trade in goods and services will be in the region of $500 billion this year. Our foreign exchange reserves are $230 billion. The size of our economy has crossed 1 trillion dollars,” he told a seminar here.
“But all this has not come easily to us. India has achieved this by dint of hard work. We would like to continue to share our experience, our expertise, our technology with our brothers and sisters from Africa,” the minister added.
The seminar – ‘India-Africa Cooperation in Industry, Trade and Investment’ – has been organised by the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (Unido) in cooperation with the Government of India.
The five-day event, which started Monday, is being attended by 42 delegates from 13 African countries – Cameroon, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.
Philippe Scholtes, representative and regional director of Unido for South Asia, underlined the importance of the conference as the first event of its kind in the field of south-south cooperation.
“This event is not an end in itself but the beginning of a long-term partnership between India and Africa,” he said, adding it will cover areas like technology promotion, competitiveness, private sector, agro-industry and energy.