Govt. To Assist Development Of SMEs In Africa
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Govt. to assist development of SMEs in Africa

India has planned to establish 10 specialized vocational training institutes in 10 different African countries to aid small and medium businesses (SMEs) in the continent, informed Secretary of Ministry of Medium, Small and Medium Enterprises, Dinesh Rai.

On the sidelines of the 'Conference on Financing SME Business and Projects in Africa' Raj informed that the ministry is planning to set up incubators in Africa and will also be training some people for skill development and entrepreneurship in Africa.

A joint action plan has been prepared in this regard by the Government Of India and the Africa Union Commission to execute the provisions of the Delhi deliberations during the First India Africa Forum Summit in 2008, the vocational training institutes are being set to the tune of 5 cores in varied countries.

At present, Ministry of MSME have inked six memorandum of understanding (MOUs) and the National Small Industries Corporation Limited has signed almost 11 MOUs with the African countries.

Rai informed that Africa is looking forward to India’s help in the areas of building policy and institutional framework, participation and contribution of Indian MSMEs in exhibitions and buyer-seller meets, to assimilate details on African MSMEs on the National Small Industries Corporation (NSIC) web portal, transfer of apt technologies, joint ventures, R&D, incubation support etc.

He further added special attention on MSMEs will help both countries to create more jobs with smaller investment and this will also help in rural development.

Areas such as agro-processing, chemicals, infotech, biotech, auto components, drugs and pharmaceuticals, light engineering and electrical and electronic components would be explored as part of India-Africa MSME cooperation.

India and Africa trade relations in 2004-05 touched $9.9 billion which increased to $39 billion in 2008-09. The India–Africa Forum Summit is the official platform for the African-Indian relations.
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