New Delhi, Mar 18, IRNA – India and Africa Sunday set the target of bilateral trade as US $ 90 billion by 2015. 

In the year 2011, India-Africa bilateral trade has reached US $ 60 bn.

At the 2nd Meeting of the India-Africa Trade Ministers, held here Sunday, the Ministers agreed on the need to strengthen the trade relationship between the two sides through, inter-alia, the building of trade-related capacity and the conclusion of trade cooperation agreements between India and African Regional Economic Communities (RECs) / countries, said an official release issued here.

The Meeting was co-chaired by Dr. Maxwell M. Mkwezalamba, Commissioner for Economic Affairs, African Union Commission, and Anand Sharma, Union Minister of Commerce, Industry and Textiles of India.

The Ministers recognized the important role of the Pan-African Institutions being set up by the Indian Government under the umbrella of the ‘India-Africa Forum Summit’, for capacity building and human resource development across many areas.

During the meeting, the Ministers also launched the First India-Africa Business Council (IABC). The IABC is co-chaired by Mr. Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman, Bharti Group from India side and Mr. Alhaji Aliko Dangote, GCON, President, Chief Executive, Dangote Group, Nigeria from African side.

The Council will suggest the way forward on enhancing economic and commercial relations between India and Africa and also identify and address issues which hinder growth of economic partnership between India and Africa.

India and Africa reiterated their commitment towards the centrality of the development dimension and the expeditious completion of the Least Developed Countries’ (LDC) issues in the Doha Development Agenda, and agreed that by concluding the Doha Round of negotiations with development at its core, the multilateral trading system envisaged by the WTO would be strengthened.

Both the countries share a common platform on many issues of importance to developing countries and their joint efforts have played a key role in preventing any dilution of the development agenda.

The ‘India-Africa Trade Ministers Dialogue’ is an annual event, of which the 1st meeting was held in Addis Ababa in May, 2011, on the occasion of the 2nd Africa-India Forum Summit held at Head of State level.