The Hindu : Business : ‘Involve more nations in DCA’

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Thursday, Jun 21, 2007
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‘Involve more nations in DCA’

Special Correspondent

People of Indian origin stand to benefit

Help poor countries in development efforts
India, a promoter of economic growth in developing countries

NEW DELHI: Finance Minister P. Chidambaram on Wednesday said India should engage itself with many more developing countries and sectors for development cooperation assistance (DCA) in a bid to enhance its own strategic and commercial interests as also help the poorer nations in their development efforts.

Addressing the Parliamentary Consultative Committee attached to his Ministry here, Mr. Chidambaram said that in this process, People of Indian origin (PIO), living in donee countries, would get the benefit of DCA. In view of India’s growing stature in international affairs, he said there was a need to increase aid to poor countries while noting that in the budget for 2007-08, he had proposed the setting up of an India International Development Cooperation Agency which, apart from the Finance Ministry, would have representation from the Ministries of External Affairs and Commerce.

Lines of credit

DCA, Mr Chidambaram said, was an attractive emerging, developing and evolving programme on account of the interest subsidy provided by the Government to lines of credit extended by the Exim Bank of India. The Minister informed members that India provided lines of credit to friendly developing foreign countries which, in turn, helped the domestic companies in promoting exports of goods, including project exports, while earning the goodwill of these beneficiary countries.

More importantly, domestic companies participate in the execution of many projects in the field of railways, information technology, power generation and transmission, buses, sugar mills and other farm-based projects. In this way, Mr Chidambaram said India was fast emerging as a promoter of economic growth for many developing countries.

Mr Chidambaram told members that till date, 67 government-supported lines of credit (LoC) through the Exim Bank for about $2,772 million have been approved. Some of the beneficiary countries are Afghanistan, Angola, Djibouti, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Chad, Congo, Cote d’ Ivoire, Ethiopia, Equatorial Guinea, Fiji, Gambia, Ghana, Guyana, Guinea Bissau, Honduras, Jamaica, Laos PDR, Mali, Mauritius, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nepal, Niger, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Suriname, Vietnam and Zambia, he said.

Special initiatives

These LoCs, Mr Chidambaram said, included special initiatives like New Partnership of African Development (NEPAD), TEAM-9 initiative of India and the ASEAN initiative. Besides this, a technical cooperation agreement was drawn up between India and NEPAD for extending grant for financial consultancy services and training.

NEPAD, the Finance Minister explained, was a special international initiative for long-term economic development of the region. India had pledged $200 million for this initiative. So far, six proposals, involving a total amount of $122.77 million to various African countries, had been approved under the NEPAD initiative.

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