Over 40 African nations are expected to participate in the 2015 India-Africa Forum Summit (IAFS), during which Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi hopes to secure greater economic and political cooperation. In the midst of Chinese economic slowdown, New Delhi will use the three-day event, which begins on October 26, to highlight India as an alternative for investment and trade.
Despite a long trading history between India and Africa, economic ties have declined since the Cold War era
Despite a long trading history between India and Africa, economic ties have declined since the Cold War era. Yet commonalities between the two make a stronger partnership a natural progression for their respective foreign policies; both live with a colonial past and are home to the largest concentration of people living in extreme poverty. Although they each have various challenges to contend with, they are also experiencing impressive GDP growth in a period of general global stagnation.
In fact, both India and Africa are currently undergoing a period of transition, in which an unprecedented level of economic activity is resulting in an expanding middle class and increasing urbanisation, thereby making them both drivers of global growth, a significant factor given China’s ongoing economic slowdown.
Since the IAFS was first held in 2008, the event has successfully doubled bilateral annual trade to around $72m. That being said, there is still a long way to go to reach the level at which Africa currently trades with China, which is a formidable $200m per annum. “We can’t match the Chinese in terms of resources – but any engagement we do with the Africans at least gives them a choice,” C. Raja Mohan, a representative from Observer Research Foundation, told Reuters.
This comment, among others, indicates the soft foreign policy approach that India is taking in regards to the African continent, as it attempts to consolidate a relationship that is based on development, as opposed to exploitation or extraction.
