Vice-President Saulos Chilima has challenged delegates attending the 13th Confederation of Indian Industry to make the most of the India\/Africa trade partnership which has a market potential of $5 trillion.<\/p>\n
Chilima said tapping into this market to its fullest potential would require removing trade barriers that are hindering growth.<\/p>\n
He was speaking when he delivered his keynote address during the 2018 Exim Bank Conclave underway in New Dehli, India.<\/p>\n
Chilima noted that, despite Africa and India\u2019s longstanding trade history, the India-Africa trade gap is still wide, with Africa continuing to export raw products with minimal value addition.<\/p>\n
He said creating a win-win situation would require removing trade barriers that are hindering growth, including lack of access to trade finance, transport and logistics problems and informal controls in the form of non-tariff barriers.<\/p>\n
\u201cNon-tariff barriers have also posed a major challenge to African traders because it takes time to process Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary (SPS) certificates,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He then called on the government of India to speed up processing SPS issues with African traders to promote India-Africa trade which would translate into a win-win situation for both partners.<\/p>\n
He said investing in Africa is a worthwhile decision as many African countries have preferential market access to the United States of America (USA) worth $18.5 trillion through the African Growth Opportunity Act (Agoa), European Union [$16.5 trillion through Everything But Arms initiative] and China $10.8 trillion.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe African market is substantial and worth investing in. Besides the $2.5 trillion, which is accessible regardless of a country of investment through regional trade agreements, making Africa your investment destination of choice is, therefore, a wise decision,\u201d Chilima said.<\/p>\n
India\u2019s Minister of Commerce and Industry, Suresh Prabhu, said India is committed to continuing to partner Africa and assisting member countries based on need.<\/p>\n
Prabhu said there is potential for both regions to benefit through experience sharing.<\/p>\n
Since the first Exim Bank Conclave was held in 2005, participation of African countries has grown from 17 to over 37, leading to investment projects reaching a peak of 549 projects valued at $84.4 billion.<\/p>\n
India is an important source of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Africa. Between 2010 and 2015, Indian FDI to Africa amounted to $17 billion.<\/p>\n
India also remains a major destination of African outward investment with Mauritius leading the way as a source of FDI to India.<\/p>\n
Since 2010, Africa\u2019s exports to India have increased by 28 percent while imports from India have increased by 93 percent.<\/p>\n
Africa\u2019s exports to India are projected to grow from $27 billion in 2016 to $50 billion in 2022.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Vice-President Saulos Chilima has challenged delegates attending the 13th Confederation of Indian Industry to make the most of the India\/Africa trade partnership which has a market potential of $5 trillion. Chilima said tapping into this market to its fullest potential would require removing trade barriers that are hindering growth. He was speaking when he delivered […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":62989,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62985"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62985\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62990,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62985\/revisions\/62990"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}