By Manish Chand, IANS,
Addis Ababa: A day before its second summit with African leaders, India Monday ruled out any rivalry with China in its diplomatic and business forays into Africa and underlined that the West was trying to pit New Delhi against Beijing by conjuring up an arena of competition between the emerging Asian powers.
“Africa has tremendous economic potential. It’s a continent on the move. For us, it’s an opportunity and for the rest of the world also it is an opportunity,” Indian officials travelling with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Ethiopia said here.
“There is enough space for India and what it is good at – skills development, training, capacity building,” the officials added.
Amid talk about India competing with China for Africa’s resources and markets, Indian officials stressed that the West was trying to conjure up a scenario of rivalry. “The West is setting up Africa as a zone of contention. They want us (India and China) to be at each other’s throat. They want to play India against China,” they said.
Denying that India had been outsmarted by China in pushing its interests in Africa, officials said there was fundamental difference between the approach of India and China towards engagement with Africa.
“There is a large Chinese presence in the continent. They are mostly focused on infrastructure, raw materials and extractive industries. Chinese commercial presence is concentrated. Ours is small business presence scattered throughout Africa,” a senior Indian official said.
On Tuesday, Manmohan Singh will co-chair the second India-Africa Forum summit with Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, chairman of the African Union (AU) and president of Equatorial Guinea.
The two sides plan to fashion a robust strategic partnership that will entail expansion of trade and investment on the one hand and closer coordination over a range of global issues including terrorism, piracy, climate change and the UN reforms.
India has made a rapid economic thrust into Africa in recent years, but it still lags far behind with its bilateral trade of around $45 billion, less than half of that of China’s trade with Africa, which is estimated to be close to $108 billion.
Unlike China which has tended to focus on hydrocarbons and extractive resources in Africa, India has prided itself on putting capacity building and training at the heart of its engagement with Africa. Trade, technology transfer and training are in fact the three pillars that frame India’s multi-faceted engagement with Africa.
India says its engagement with Africa, grounded in the shared struggle against colonialism and apartheid, is aimed at resurgence and empowerment of the African people. This will be the central message of Manmohan Singh at the summit, a top official source disclosed
(Manish Chand can be contacted at [email protected])