Business as usual: PM leaves for Africa today

Just as India’s foreign policy and perceptions about it within the ruling coalition and its supporters become a critical factor in ensuring the stability of the Government...

Just as India’s foreign policy and perceptions about it within the ruling coalition and its supporters become a critical factor in ensuring the stability of the Government, Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh is starting a bilateral visit to Nigeria, India’s largest trading partner in Africa, followed by the trilateral IBSA summit in South Africa. His trip will also be an attempt to convey that it is business as usual for the UPA Government, despite the sense of uncertainty in recent weeks.

The PM leaves on his four-day trip to Africa on Sunday morning, with the bilateral meeting in Abuja scheduled for Monday. The visit also includes an address to the Nigerian National Assembly and also a meeting with representatives of the 30,000-strong Indian community there.

Though the annual trade turnover between the two countries is about $6 billion, the balance of trade has usually been in Nigeria’s favour, with India importing vast amounts of crude oil from this oil rich country. Oil constitutes more than 96 per cent of Indian imports from here. The relationship between the two countries got an impetus with Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo visiting India in 2000 as Chief Guest at India’s 50th Republic day celebrations.

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The PM will later fly to South Africa to attend the second IBSA summit on October 17. The first IBSA summit was held in Brasilia last September. Business and academic seminars, a women’s forum and a parliamentary forum have been arranged in the sidelights of the summit.

IBSA hopes to establish itself as an important and strategic partnership between emerging developing countries sharing problems and offering solutions to several common issues faced by them. Recently, in the UN, the three IBSA countries jointly got a resolution passed by a majority of countries, supporting the call for a need to reform the UN SC.

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