00:00Honorable Prime Minister will visit Namibia on 9th July and this visit is also important.
00:07It's coming after 27 years and the current president who is Netumbu Nandi Nwaita has
00:18assumed office in March this year which is why the visit happening so early in our tenure
00:25is very useful to renew the relationship at the same time deepen our economic engagement
00:33with Namibia.
00:36The program will have a ceremonial welcome.
00:40Honorable Prime Minister will pay homage to Dr. Sam Najuma.
00:44There will be delegation level talks, one-on-one discussions and he will also address the parliament.
00:51The substance of the relationship is again, as you know, that India and Namibia have been
00:58a very strong relationship for a very long time.
01:02Historical context, the independence struggle.
01:05We recognize Namibia long before it got independence.
01:09We took up its cause in the UNGA in 1946 and also allowed to set up a diplomatic mission
01:17in India in 1986, even before it got independence in 1990.
01:24The bilateral relations are very wide-ranging.
01:28Let me focus on the trade here.
01:31It is 600 million marginally in favor of India.
01:35Our investments are about 800 million, mostly in mineral resources like zinc and diamond processing.
01:42We all are aware that India had taken a few cheetahs from Namibia and relocated to Kuno National Park.
01:58That phase had very successfully been implemented.
02:02In the development cooperation area, the capacity building, defense cooperation,
02:09defense training of the personnel of Namibia, the Center for Excellence of the Information Technology
02:14that we have set it up.
02:16Then, most importantly, what's going to happen during the visit is the unified payment interoperability.
02:23The technology agreement being signed has already been entered between the Central Bank of Namibia and the NPCI.
02:31So, this will take forward and that, we believe, is a very important development in our relationship.
02:38Namibia is a very resource-rich country.
02:42It has natural resources of uranium, copper, cobalt, rare eggs in large numbers, lithium, graphite, tantalum.
02:50And all of these are of interest to us.
02:52In the recent times, Namibia has also discovered new oil fields.
02:56There, again, going to be a broad understanding on the partnership in hydrocarbons.
03:01Namibia is also keen to engage with us in agriculture and pharma.
03:06And we will be exploring India's low-cost solutions like DPI, Geno Shirdi, traditional medicine, Ayurveda.
03:13You have to understand, in a broader context, how important is partnering Africa.
03:18We have done the India-Africa Forum Summit 3 in 2015.
03:22We will be very soon doing India-Africa Forum Summit 4.
03:26And in that context, engaging with Africa with both individual countries and the EU are very important.
03:33Africa in recent time has also evolved.
03:36It has become more aspirational.
03:38It wants manufacturing to happen in the country.
03:40And it wants value addition to happen in the country.
03:44The Africa-wide free trade continent is another great opportunity to engage with Africa.
03:48So we have to keep this at the back of our mind, dealing with Africa.
03:51There are lots of opportunities.
03:52And we need to look at this with more keenness.
Comments