HYDERABAD: African diplomats to India have said that their countries were engaged in economic development as opposed to the earlier practice of looking up to the United Nations, European Union and the West for help.

At a seminar in connection with the India-Africa Project Partnership-2006, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Ethiopian Ambassador Gennet Zewide and High Commissioner of Ghana J. Bentum-Williams said the African Union nations floated the New Economic Partnership for African Development (NEPAD), an umbrella organisation of all heads of States. The NEPAD also worked for eliminating corruption and evaluating performance of member countries in good governance.

Incentives

They said NEPAD, headquartered at Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, attracted foreign investments by offering incentives. There was neither any tariff nor quotas between NEPAD countries.

Ms. Zewide said the African nations even avoided the UN Peace Keeping Force for conflict resolution. A force of the African Union was raised on the same lines and it was active in Ivory Coast and Liberia.

Investment

Finance Minister K. Rosaiah discussed the steps taken by the State Government to attract investment. He said the first phase of Fab City to set up testing facilities would be completed this year. The second phase to install the chip manufacturing facility would be over in 2007-09. It would have a capacity to manufacture 30,000 wafers a month. There would be 100 to 1,000 chips in each wafer. The Minister added that power projects to generate an additional 4,700 MW were under different stages of completion. Efforts were on to take the State GDP into double digits. It was 8.3 per cent now. G. Vivekanand, state Chairman, CII, also spoke.

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