Abuja, Nigeria:
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Tuesday that India is “betting on the rise of Africa” and that the world’s rebalancing and multipolarity will not be complete until the continent takes its rightful place.
Addressing the Nigeria-India Business Council (NIBC) here, the foreign minister said the rebalancing and re-ordering of a new world order will only happen when its core is economic, meaning the rise of Africa must be the economic rise of Africa.
“Now, this obviously presents choices, because it’s very difficult to rise to the world class by being a market for others or just being a provider of resources,” he said.
S Jaishankar said, “Africa is rising and India is betting on Africa’s rise” because, by any objective assessment, today there is “so much growth for Africa in terms of demography, resources, ambition, terms, increasingly , policy alignments’. This clearly strong, a very different, much more positive future in the short term, he said.
“We are betting on Africa because…we have a common past, not always a happy history, not between us, but between us and some other people. But it is a history that has created a huge solidarity. And this solidarity today makes me I am saying very clearly that for us, when we talk about a changing world order… the reordering of the world, the rebalancing, the multipolarity of the world will not be complete until Africa takes its place,” said S Jaishankar.
He said digital public infrastructure, green and clean growth, water, rural sustainability and security and blue economy are some of the areas where cooperation between India and Africa can grow.
The minister, who arrived Nigeria on Sunday after attending the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit in Uganda, concluded his two-nation tour with the address at the NIBC. He is the first foreign minister from India to visit Nigeria.
Noting that there is trade worth about $13 billion to $15 billion annually between India and Nigeria and New Delhi has invested nearly $30 billion in the country, S Jaishankar said Nigeria is India’s top economic partner in Africa.
“But having said that,” he argued, “I would also urge you not to be complacent, to consider the possibilities…India’s exports in the year just ended were US$766 billion…and I am sure, sure you would like , (for) a larger part of that share to come to Nigeria”. To build the business relationship even stronger, the governments of both the countries should find constructive and practical solutions to challenges related to banking, insurance, credit guarantees, flight connections and trade arrangements, said S Jaishankar.
(Other than the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published by a syndicated feed.)