On areas of co-operation

To my mind some of the areas which are expected offer opportunities are service sectors like hotel and tourism, oil and gas sector - both upstream and downstream, infrastructure development, trade and technology cooperation. Eco-tourism in Africa has tremendous potential and this is well known. It's a continent with abundant flora and fauna. India has already developed quite a lot of expertise. Our hotel industry has been able to reach out beyond India. As regards oil and gas, we can cooperate with Nigeria, a major oil producing country. Another area is infrastructure development. In the past we have participated in the export of projects in the middle-east and it should be possible for India to enter into collaborative arrangements. Trade co-operation is another area. Already there is a move for a free trade agreement between South Africa and India. This bilateral agreement would help in enlarging our presence in the trade blocs of Africa. Technology is another area where we can possibly offer our assistance in respect of IT, communication, biotechnology where we can enter into collaborative operations.

On 'Focus: Africa' programme

This policy for a 'Focus: Africa' campaign is a useful one, particularly because the results that have been achieved from the 'Focus: Latin America' campaign have been found to be encouraging. The countries that have been chosen have got a lot of potential. Indian share is not too high at present and that is why we should start a new drive. A number of seminars have already been organized, money has been provided for market development studies. Some of export development councils have also held comprehensive seminars regarding their respective products. There is now expectation of greater involvement of our Indian missions in promoting this cooperation. A huge sum of money has been earmarked for market studies, essentially to work out the strategies. We should remember that any policy initiative of the government in respect of trade can only be for facilitating export in particular and trade as a whole. It will really depend upon exporters to make use of these facilities to expand their horizons. I have always maintained that the decent export growth achieved by India in the last decade, has been because of two factors which have complemented one another: one is the policy framework of the government for facilitating exports and the other is increasing competitiveness of India's exports alongwith new initiatives by the exporters.

On WTO

Each country has got its own national interest; at the most it's a question of collaborative approach for projecting matters of common interest. In fact in Doha, we had a very close cooperation and understanding with African countries. Even today, that is continuing in issues like special and differential treatment and trade barriers. There is unanimity of interest vis-à-vis the developed countries. It's a question of exchanging our views and providing united front in the multilateral discussion.

Expectations

In, 'Focus: Africa', the main thrust is on trade promotion. Trade and investment are interrelated; there is no doubt that all those areas, which I have mentioned will attract investment - today, tomorrow or day after.