China has long ruled the diplomatic and economic zone with an investment of $200 billion in the last 15 years in Africa, known as dark continent signifying the huge potential. This initiative by Prime Minister Narendra Modi helped India to reach out to the fast-developing continent which has a similar demographic profile to ours and also harbors rich resources.

In fact the summit was partly in response to initiatives by other emerging powers. Forum on China-Africa Cooperation was launched in 2000 and the Asian giant has already made big strides in Africa cashing -in on the huge economic potential of the continent. This summit in New Delhi has established the fact that India and Africa matter to each other.

Africa is rich in minerals and other natural resources, while India has the low-cost technology to exploit them thereby providing win-win situation for both. Africa remains important for India's emergence as a global actor. This included Africa's support to India becoming permanent member of UN security council. India's role in UN peacekeeping efforts in Africa is lauded and significant.

India's commercial ties with Africa have seen substantial leap over the years setting the stage for deeper connect, according to FICCI president Jyotsna Suri. This is evident from the fact that India's trade with Africa has increased from $39 billion in 2009-10 to $71 billion in 2014-15. India's investment in Africa has gone up to $11.4 billion. At the Forum several Africa leaders were enthusiastic to utilise Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Make in India policy to boost trade between the two geographies. The 54 African countries together offer vast opportunities in raw material sourcing. What is finding favour among African leaders is the idea of real value addition in India with products being exported to third countries. After the summit, there are indications that India's trade would double to $140 billion in the next few years. This also meant that it will throw up more opportunity for Indian investments there. Of course, China's dominance will continue and India would have to do a lot of catching up.

Modi aims to go all out for development of solar energy and reach it to the most unconnected villages and communities. He used this opportunity to invite African nations to join an alliance of solar-rich countries that India has proposed to launch in Paris on November 30. He hopes to reach a “comprehensive and concrete outcome” in the UN Convention on Climate Change with “a genuine global public partnership that makes clean energy affordable; provides finance and technology to developing countries to access it; and the means to adapt to the impact of climate change”.

India is looking at Africa’s successful experiment with mobile banking and hoping to adopt some of this to conditions in certain states here. India’s pharma products, the generic drugs which have been opposed by big multinational drug companies, have saved millions of lives in Africa. The drugs made by Indian pharmaceutical companies have brought down the prices of drugs, bringing the cost of treating Aids to affordable levels. All this has been noted in Africa. Today Indian pharmaceutical products provide 80 percent of medicines in poorer African nations.

New Delhi has extended concessional credit to various countries in Africa worth $7.4 billion. This concessional credit is responsible for the creation of about 137 projects in 41 African countries today. This connects universities and hospitals in 48 African nations to counter parts in Indian cities for professional advice and training. Capacity building has been one of India’s strongest planks of cooperation. New Delhi has awarded 25,000 scholarships for students across Africa.

According to McKinsey report, India can aspire to quadruple its revenues from Africa to $160 billion by 2025 by stepping up its presence in IT, agriculture and pharmaceuticals and this forum meeting provided huge opportunity to take this forward.

The problem of periodic shortage of dal in India can be overcome by starting massive cultivation of dal in Africa. Dal is grown in very few countries in the world and India finds it difficult to import when there is a shortfall in production in India. East Africa provided opportunity for its cultivation to meet the growing demand of this protein-rich commodity in India.

Africa is well endowed with natural mineral resources needed to produce fertilisers. Africa has huge reserves of coal, natural gas, phosphate rock and untapped deposits of potash. There is an obvious synergy between India and Africa in fertiliser, coal and petroleum sectors. Already India is buying oil from Nigeria Algeria, Mozambique and Angola, ONGC Videsh is now looking to invest in West Africa and it proposed to step it up further. The Forum also explored cooperation in renewable energy and development small scale industries. India can draw lesson from China and Indians can buy huge tracks of land in Africa for cultivation of Dal, which is not adequately produced in India. Also demand for dal is overgrowing with per capita increasing in India as this is a major source of protein particularly for vegetarians.

India assured the African countries that it would share technology, expertise, skill and help in capacity building endeavours in the Africa Continent. Trade minister Nirmala Sitharaman called upon African nations to leverage Duty Free Tariff Preferences offered by India. The scheme for least developed countries provides duty free market access on over 95 per cent of tariff lines

Africa has the potential for development of Tourism, Healthcare, Hospitality and ICT sectors. The Government of India supported Pan-Africa E-Network has contributed significantly to the Africa’s skill development and healthcare delivery. Infrastructure development, value addition in mining and beneficiation, education and healthcare are priority sectors for economic development and African countries invited Indian entrepreneurs to invest in areas of its strength.

Modi promised to give high priority to the trade and investment flow between India and Africa and cited defence and security cooperation as the key to the India-Africa partnership. He also promised to ensure full and effective implementation of the duty-free access extended to 34 countries.

In sum, the three-day summit has set the stage to take India-Africa economic cooperation to a new high. There is huge potential for economic cooperation and it all dependent on how India went about to tap it. Once two salesmen from two different shoe companies in Europe were sent to explore the market for shoes in Africa. Salesman of one company reported back after surveying that there is no opportunity for selling shoes as Africans do not wear shoes. The other salesman reported back that saying that there is plenty of opportunity as shoes are not available in Africa. So it all depends on how India seizes the opportunity that the summit has thrown. If it approached positively India can make big strides and even compete with China to get a bigger share of the African cake. (IPA Service)