India-Africa Business Conclave 2024 Seeks to Boost Trade to $200B by 2030
The theme of the 19th India-Africa Business Conclave was “Creating ONE Future” and took place at the Taj Palace Hotel in New Delhi from 20 to 22 August, 2024.
For this edition, the emphasis was on seven African Focus Countries, namely, Zimbabwe, Mauritius, The Gambia, Equatorial Guinea, Liberia and Burundi. These Focus Countries were all represented at the Vice-President (VP) level.
During his welcome address, Indian VP Jagdeep Dhankar underscored India’s ‘unwavering commitment to Africa’s development and prosperity.’ Indeed, India played a decisive role during its presidency of the #G20 to have the African Union (AU) formally admitted as a permanent member. As another sign of the commitment to strengthen ties with Africa, India now has 46 embassies out of the 55 states that are members of the African Union.
On his part, Zimbabwean VP Constantino Chiwenga called for renewed efforts to reinforce the India-Africa cooperation and to work towards sustainable goals. As the theme of the Conclave suggests, the future of Africa and India are tied closely together as the collaboration is underpinned by common values and goals.
He underlined that the India-Africa relationship shall be guided by the #AU Framework for Continent-to-Country Strategic Partnership as both sides seek to reinforce ties and cooperate to address contemporary challenges.
Indian Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal delivered a keynote speech and set the bar high in terms of trade between India and Africa. Currently sitting at USD 100 billion, Minister Goyal would very much like to see the trade volume between India and Africa doubled to USD 200 billion by 2030.
In his view, India and Africa have a large scope of cooperation, including in the sectors of pharma, agriculture, automobile, #CriticalMinerals, #RenewableEnergy, and tourism.
So far, few African countries actually have any significant trade with India. In the future, he would like to see many more African states taking part and advantage of the Duty-Free Tariff Preference (DFTP) Scheme with India.
Malawi is a successful story that other African countries may wish to emulate. Over the years, Malawi has been able to export to India an expanding range of agricultural produce such as pigeon pas, soybean, macadamia nuts, ground nuts, chillies and mangoes.
However, African countries have made clear their ambitions to upgrade their capabilities in order to move up the Global Value Chain (#GVC). Thus, in the case of #CriticalMinerals, African countries no longer wish to be mere exporters of unrefined ores but are envisioning a roadmap to undertake more Local Value Addition (#LVA).
Minister Goyal also emphasized India’s strength and expertise in IT and #FoodSecurity and stated that India is willing to share its experience with Africa. For instance, India has a successful experience in expanding the cultivation of pulses and oil seeds and to the production of cow milk to feed its huge population.
Similarly, India is globally recognized as an #HiTech Hub with many top global #IT companies being headed by people of Indian origin (#PIO). Thus, India is willing to share its technology expertise with Africa in a bid to foster #digitalization.
In that regard, India has partnered with Mauritius to implement #eGov, #eHealth and #FinTech projects. Moreover, India has exported a fleet of electric vehicles (#EV) for public transportation to Mauritius and the two countries have also recently signed an agreement to develop and launch a satellite.