India satser milliarder i Afrika og tilbyr afrikanske land lån på 90 milliarder kroner. Fra allafrica.com;
India on Thursday offered ten billion dollars in soft loans to African countries over the next five years.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made the offer in New Delhi at the opening of the Third Summit of the India-Africa Forum.
Mozambican Prime Minister Carlos Agostinho do Rosario is attending the summit in representation of President Filipe Nyusi.
The ten billion dollars is new money. Modi said it does not include the loan programmes that are currently under way. In addition, India will offer grants of 600 million dollars over the same period.
“This will include an India-Africa Development Fund of 100 million dollars and an India-Africa Health Fund of ten million dollars”, said Modi. “It will also include 50,000 scholarships in India over the next five years”.
Since the first India-Africa Summit, held in 2008, India has promised to make 7.4 billion dollars available in soft loans, and 1.2 billion dollars in grants, as well as the creation of 100 institutions of capacity building and the development of infrastructure, public transport, clean energy, agriculture, irrigation and manufacturing capacity throughout Africa.
As part of these efforts, Modi added, about 25,000 young Africans were educated and trained in India over the last three years. “They are 25,000 new connections between us”, he said.
To show how close India and Africa are, Modi spoke of a shared history over centuries, marked initially by trade, and in the later stages by the struggles for freedom and dignify against colonialism. Now, he said, Africa and India are continuing to fight for opportunities and justice.
“Let us work together, starting from the memory of our common struggles, and the tide of our collective hopes”, the Prime Minister urged. “Today, Africa and India are two bright points of hope and opportunities in the global economy”.
The partnership between India and Africa, Modi said, “goes beyond strategic concerns and economic benefits. It is based on the emotional links we share and the solidarity we feel towards each other”.
In less than a decade, trade between India and Africa had more than doubled to over 70 billion dollars a year, he stressed, and today 34 African countries enjoy duty-free access to the Indian market.