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INDIA EXPLORING INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITIES IN IVORY COAST
Date : 04 Aug 2006
Location : New Delhi
INDIA EXPLORING INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITIES IN IVORY COAST
New Delhi: 4th August, 2006
After a long gap of 9 years, the second meeting of the Indo-Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) Joint Trade Committee was held yesterday. A delegation of 110 members from Côte d'Ivoire including 3 Senior Ministers and led by the Foreign Minister of Côte d'Ivoire Mr. Youssouf BAKAYOKO is in India and met with Shri Jairam Ramesh, Minister of State for Commerce and other officials.
Shri Jairam Ramesh drew attention to the emerging importance of Africa in India’s foreign economic policy and a special role that West Africa is now occupying. He identified hydrocarbons and diamonds as two areas where India is actively exploring investment opportunities in West African countries. Shri Ramesh spoke about the activities of ONGC Videsh in Côte d'Ivoire where it has already invested $ 12 million for oil and gas exploration and will now seek to expand its activities there.
Shri Ramesh pointed out that while the volume of two-way trade between India and Côte d'Ivoire in 2005-06 is only $ 350 million and is confined mostly to rice from India and raw cashews from Côte d'Ivoire, the real success story of India in the Côte d'Ivoire lies in investment. In the last 11 months, Indian companies have announced their intentions to invest close to $ 1 billion in the Côte d'Ivoire spread over the next 5 years in the mining sector. In the last ten years, the total amount of announced Indian FDI abroad is around $ 10 billion.
The Côte d'Ivoire delegation expressed their keenness for Indian support to start an IT-cum-Technology Park in Abidjan, named after Mahatma Gandhi. Shri Ramesh promised all support and assured the Côte d'Ivoire delegation of India’s seriousness in getting this technology park operational at the very earliest, as also for increasing the lines of credit from India to Côte d'Ivoire & scholarships to its students in India under the on-going ITEC programme. 50 such scholarships have been extended to Côte d'Ivoire and this will now be enhanced to 65.
Shri Ramesh recalled that in the 1980s, the development economics community had lauded the economic miracle of Côte d'Ivoire and expressed the hope that the on-going ethnic conflict there would end soon. He assured India’s full assistance in the rebuilding & reconstruction of Côte d'Ivoire.
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