India, African officials discuss specific framework to boost

Aiming to ramp up engagement, India and African countries today deliberated on possible deliverables at a summit between the two sides which is aimed at lifting the overall ties to a new high with particular focus on trade, security and development cooperation.
On the first day of the four-day-long India-Africa Summit, top officials of India and a number of African countries discussed about a specific framework to boost ties besides deliberating on a "political document".
"They are negotiating two documents. One is going to be a political document which will talk of the political partnership between India and Africa. It will touch upon global and regional issues.

"Other one is going to be framework document of cooperation which will talk about the development partnership of Africa, line of credit by India to African nations," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup told reporters.
He said terrorism could find place in the discussions in the summit.
Tomorrow, the summit will see interaction at the level of foreign ministers while the third leg will see meeting of the heads of the states on October 29.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj will also hold bilateral talks with her counterparts from Zimbabwe, South Sudan, Kenya, Malawi, Ghana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Cape Verde, Ghana among others tomorrow.

In her talks, Swaraj will try to analyse needs of Africa and how India can contribute in their development agenda.
Representatives of 54 African nations including heads of state and government of around 40 countries and powerful African Union are expected to participate in the summit.
India's current trade with Africa is around USD 75 billion and it has granted a whopping USD 7.4 billion for various developmental and capacity building projects in the past four years. India has implemented a total of 137 projects in 41 African countries during the period.
Expanding trade ties will be a major focus area at the summit which will see participation of over 400 business delegates from Africa besides all major Indian chambers of commerce.