Africa quarterly special on emerging powers.pdf - SAFPI

N E W SEthiopia seeks India’s helpfor rail projectEthiopia wants $300 million morefrom India for an ambitious railwayproject that would connectit with neighbouring Djibouti, a venturethat India backs as part of its “support forregional integration in <strong>Africa</strong>”. India hasalready inked a loan agreement worth$300 million for the railway project.However, the loan from New Delhi isyet to be disbursed. “The support to therailway is part of India’s support forregional integration in <strong>Africa</strong>. This is thefirst time we are doing a project whichcovers more than one country. That iswhy we are going through the proceduresrather carefully,” said GurjitSingh, Joint Secretary, (East & Southern<strong>Africa</strong>), Ministry of External Affairs, onJanuary 28.Singh said the $300-million disbursementwould depend on how theproject was implemented, which was inthe hands of the Ethiopian andDjiboutian railway corporations.“We are just facilitating and workingwith them on the feasibility study, andfrom that we will discover how our partof the implementation will comethrough. Once all that is settled and theproject goes on stream, we see no difficultyin periodic and timely disbursements,”Singh said. The Ethiopian governmentplans to construct a 2,395 kmnational railway network, out of which1,808 km will be completed by 2015.“At the highest level, India hasexpressed its commitment to the projectand we will try to do whatever we can.But all these possibilities are based ontechnical discussions. So the politicalcommitment is there, but we have tomake sure the technical discussion goesthrough smoothly and they lead to practicalimplementation. That is what weare now focusing on,” he said.Ethiopia and India have seen an“exemplary” relationship in the past,according to Singh, who has also servedas India’s ambassador to the country.With more than $700 millionextended by New Delhi for rural electrificationand sugar production projectssince 2006, Ethiopia is the biggest recipientof India’s lines of credit in <strong>Africa</strong>,Singh said. An Indian delegation led bySingh and the Ethiopian team headedby Arega Hailu, Director-General of theAsia and Oceania Affairs of the Ministryof Foreign Affairs, held discussions atthe second round of India-Ethiopia foreignoffice consultations.It followed up on the decisions takenat the India-<strong>Africa</strong> summit last year andat bilateral meetings between EthiopianPrime Minister Meles Zenawi andPrime Minister Manmohan Singh.Singh had earlier visited Addis Ababa inMay 2011.The two sides discussed the implementationof decisions taken under theIndia-<strong>Africa</strong> Forum Summit I & II,including the establishment of fourcapacity-building institutions inEthiopia. These include a vocationaltraining centre, an IT centre, a women’ssolar engineering vocational trainingcentre and a farm science centre.According to the Indian mission inEthiopia, the two countries agreed thatthe next joint commission meetingwould be held in 2013.n16 August 2011-January 2012