Africa is rising, and India is betting on Africa’s rise: External Affairs Minister Jaishankar

Abuja: Lauding its upward trajectory in terms of aspirations, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar emphasized that India is placing its bets on Africa’s growth due to the abundant opportunities presented by its demography and resources.

In his address to the the Nigeria-India Business Council (NIBC) in Abuja, Jaishankar said, “Now, having spoken about India-Nigeria, let me make a larger point in respect of Africa. Africa is rising, and India is betting on Africa’s rise.”

“We are betting on Africa’s rise because, by any objective assessment, today there is so much growing for Africa in terms of demography, in terms of resources, in terms of ambition, in terms of, increasingly, of policy alignments. That clearly potent, a very different, much more positive future in the very short term,” he underlined.

The External Affairs Minister further stated that India is also betting on Africa, as both the nations share a history that has engendered an enormous solidarity. He asserted that for India, the multipolarity of the world will not be complete until Africa takes its due place.

The EAM said, “Now, we are betting on Africa because, as the president of NIBC reminded us, we have a shared past, not always a happy history, not between us, but between us and some other people. But it is a history which has engendered an enormous solidarity.”

“And that solidarity today makes me say very clearly that for us, when we speak about a changing global order, we clearly, today, India, as I said, the most populous country in the world, the fifth largest economy, a four trillion dollar approximate GDP. For us, the reordering of the world, the rebalancing, the multipolarity of the world will not be complete until Africa takes its due place,” Jaishankar said.

“And we speak of it often, certainly in the diplomatic world, in terms of, you know, there will be reform of the United Nations, who will have a seat, how will it go, and all of that is very important. But I would say to all of you that rebalancing, reordering a new global order will only happen when the core of it is economic, which is the rise of Africa has to be the economic rise of Africa,” he added. (ANI)

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