”We are not the Chinese.” This was the message from India this week as Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government used the first India-Africa Forum Summit in Delhi to redefine the way in which its role in Africa is viewed.
The government went out of its way to pre-empt suggestions that the relatively low-key summit was an attempt to catch up, following last year’s China-Africa jamboree in Shanghai, but it was even more concerned to distinguish India’s conduct in Africa from what is seen as a rapacious approach by Chinese companies to minerals exploitation.
Minister of State for External Affairs Anand Sharma, one of the prime movers behind the summit, said of India’s relationship with the African continent: ”It is time tested, it is distinct, it cannot be compared to any other country.”
Sceptics, he insisted, were not aware of the deep ties established by Mahatma Gandhi and India’s first post-independence leader, Jawaralal Nehru, who both believed India’s and Africa’s freedoms were deeply entwined.
Speaking to a group of African journalists, Minister of State for Commerce Jairam Ramesh was more blunt: ”The first principle of India’s involvement in Africa [is] unlike that of China. China says go out and exploit the natural resources, our strategy is to go out there and add value.”
Indian companies working on infrastructure projects in Africa, he said, would not bring the labour force with them, as the Chinese prefer to. Instead, Indian engineering teams will employ and train local staff.
But clearly, access to resources is a crucial policy concern for India, which requires massive quantities of raw materials to fuel its burgeoning economy. The distinction it is trying to draw with China concerns how it goes about securing that access.
Ramesh travelled ahead of the summit to Namibia and Angola where he worked on a package of deals to acquire direct access to west coast oilfields and rough diamonds.
India’s vast diamond-processing industry consumes about $10-billion in rough stones annually, adding about $4-billion in value, according to commerce ministry figures.
Ramesh believes direct access to those rough stones will more readily be made available if India takes account of African desires to establish local cutting industries. He punted plans to help set up processing centres and train local workers.
”Nine out of 10 diamonds mined in Africa come to India for cutting and polishing … how do we help these countries to move up the value chain?” he asked. ”The Africanisation of the diamond industry is not a threat to India but a great opportunity.”
Similarly in Angola, where state-owned ONGC-Videsh wants a slice of lucrative offshore oilfields, India is proposing to take a stake in the 200 000-barrel-a-day Lobito refinery, to set up a petrochemicals research and training facility and, perhaps, to build a 300MW gas-fired power station.
This combination of infrastructure investment, education and hard-nosed business is seen by Indian officials as a model for sustainable long-term engagement, which, they argue, will enable them to do business in Africa despite the fact that they lack both the resources and the centrally coordinated strategy that has driven the rapid expansion of Chinese activity on the continent.
The most substantial announcements at the summit, however, concerned trade and development finance. Singh announced a preferential trade scheme for the world’s 50 least-developed countries, 34 of which are in Africa.
The scheme will eliminate duties and quotas on a wide range of primary commodities and finished goods, including cotton, cocoa, aluminium ores, copper ores, cashew nuts, cane sugar, clothing, fish fillets and gem diamonds, improving access to India’s still-protected markets for the poorest countries, but also helping reduce input costs for Indian manufacturers — a crucial domestic issue as inflation brings increasing pressure on India’s ruling coalition.
African leaders pressed for the preferences to be expanded to the whole of Africa, Tanzanian president and African Union chairperson Jakaya Kikwete told the summit, but it seems further trade liberalisation will be slow and probably bilateral.
India will, however, double the lines of credit it offers African countries to fund investment with an Indian component to $5,4-billion, offer $500-million in aid grants and increase its array of educational scholarships and technical training programmes for African students.
The summit agreed on a broad cooperation framework in agriculture, trade, education, governance, the reform of global institutions and infrastructure, which is due for review at the second summit, planned to take place in Africa in 2011.
Nic Dawes travelled to Delhi as a guest of the Indian government