After the successive summits held in the last few years between Africa and a number of international powers such as France and China, the turn is now on India: The Indian Capital New Delhi organised the first Afro-Indian Summit on 8-9 April with the participation of 14 African countries.

This first summit is an initiative from Mr. Manmohan Singh, the Indian Prime Minister, since India has a number of interests in the African Continent: Africa is considered a large market for the Indian products. In this regard, the trade between the two parties has reached 12.5 billion dollars in the year 2007. Also, India announced that it will present 500 million dollars for development activities in Africa.

This Summit aims at the following:
• Enhancing the South-South cooperation.
• Furthering African development process in different fields such as; agriculture, industry, human resources and scientific research.
• Empowering African youth through job creation.
• Benefiting from the successful Indian experience in the field of Information Technology in improving the existing local industries in Africa.
• Establishing a mechanism to continuously follow the effective implementation of cooperation between the two sides.

It is worth noting that the Egyptian delegation in the Summit is headed by Mrs. Fayza Abul Naga, Minister of International Cooperation.