Honorable Minister, Excellency Mwebesa Francis,
Shri Ravi Patel ji,
Shri Mohan Reddy ji,
Distinguished business personalities,
Let me say what a great pleasure is to meet with all of you this evening. This is my first visit to Uganda. I came here yesterday. We've had two really busy days and I am here obviously in pursuance of expanding our historical relationship. And at the core of that is really expanding our business co-operation. And I thank you today for giving me the opportunity to meet all of you, to share my views, to encourage you in many ways, and I certainly hope to do that in the coming evening.
I arrived yesterday and had the honor immediately on arrival to call on His Excellency, the President. And, interestingly, the main message that he gave to me, he said, you know, our political relations are great; you know, we have this long tradition of cooperation, there is the Indian community here, which is doing very well. So when we came down to the (Inaudible), the message which he gave me was, how do we find ways of, in his words, doing a value add, on what is the current state of business between the two countries. And I think it's a very, very pertinent point because if we look at the state of the economies of India and Uganda, what is clear is that at both ends, and in the world, there are a lot of changes going on. And the challenge for us is really to capture those changes. Capture the changes and harness it for the benefit of our respective countries.
A gentleman here was very kind enough to give you my data, my curriculum vitae. I thank him for it. There was a little bit which he did not mention. I thought in the present gathering it's appropriate, I mention it, which was, after I did about four decades in diplomacy and before I joined politics, which is about four years ago, I did a year in business. I did a year in business in the Tata Sons as the President of their global affairs, global strategy. And I mention this to you, because the perspective that I bring today on this relationship is actually greatly enriched by that exposure, the hands on exposure that I had to business at that time. And I do carry from that period, a very sharp realization that at the end of the day, governments may have a lot of goodwill for each other. We may reach, you know, every visit has nice sounding outcomes and good communiques. But finally, where the rubber hits the road, it's all about business. Good relationships, strong relationships need in some form or the other to reflect that in terms of numbers.
So, a large part of my endeavors during this visit and when I go back to India, would really be to see how is it that we can expand those numbers, what are the new opportunities that are coming up, what are the areas perhaps we have not looked at, what is it we can do differently, what is it we can do better. And this is where obviously, your partnership, your contribution, your interest is very significant.
During this visit, I should just also share with you that today I had the pleasure of doing a virtual inauguration of our development project, which would provide drinking water to 20 rural districts in Uganda. I believe it would cover about a half a million Ugandans. Tomorrow, I will be joining the Defense Minister and the Ugandan leadership at the inauguration of the National Forensic Science University Campus here. It's the first time our Forensic Sciences University is actually establishing campus outside India and to me, it's very revealing, very interesting that they have chosen Uganda. Of course, you know that the university is in Gujarat. So maybe there's some obvious logic there, but never the less, I think its a very (Inaudible).
So let's come back to business. Today, what you see in India as a partner is actually a major economy, a large economy which is expected to grow at least 6.5%, probably higher ones,..(Inaudible).. some of the stresses on the world economy due to the Ukraine conflict received. But we have a good decade plus of very, very solid growth ahead of us. And those of you who would have been to India in recent years, will actually see what that means on the ground. In fact, at lunch, the minister and I were discussing our memories of India that you know, what was Mumbai like, what was Delhi like, what was Calcutta like. And I told him what was Bangalore like 20 years ago, 30 years, 40 years ago. What I will say, even someone who has been to India five years ago, would be quite struck by the changes which have happened in the last five years. Changes which have happened, one, perhaps the most striking part of it is actually, on the digital side, the rapid and extraordinarily effective digitalization of India, which allows an enormous number of services, both government services, public services, as well as business services to be delivered through a digital media.
Two, the base and the spread of construction that we see, especially of the infrastructure. The fact that today there is an integrated infrastructure approach, which is called Gati Shakti. So the different parts of the infrastructure progress are harmonized, and they do not in any way disturb each other by doing so. So wherever you go in India today, you actually see the roads being built, you know, bridges and tunnels and metros coming up, how, you know, construction of various kinds, and itself a very sharp awareness of what the urban services are there.
The third change is the health change. The health change, because all over the world in the last three years, the sensitivity, the priority to health has actually increased remarkably. And in our case, what happened when the COVID hit us was, you know, nobody was really prepared for the COVID. But there were different levels of unpreparedness. I think, when it first hit us in India actually, we really struggled to even meet many of the basic requirements, because that have not been the history in the past. And when we see what we've been able to do in the last three years, I would say it's really a story certainly worth telling, but more important worth seeing. So you have infrastructure moving, you have very rapid digitalization, you have a very strong emphasis on health.
And the fourth element is really green growth. That the largest renewable programs, the most imaginative embrace of green growth in different ways is actually happening in India. Now why am I telling you this? I'm telling you this because these are the core areas today, of not just India's growth, but also the partnership that India offers to other countries and other continents. And certainly when we look at Africa, these are areas where, as from a policy perspective, there is a lot that we are willing to put on the table. These are discussed today with my counterpart, these are really the areas, we would like to see this relationship focus on.
So having said that, there is (Inaudible) of the natural consequences of progress and prosperity. Again, one of the interesting indicators of this is, as the world is returning to post COVID normalcy, and you travel around, a striking feature is really how many more Indians today are there in different geographies and spaces. I have my small standard tourism today between various programs, I thought, at least I should get on a boat and go to the lake. And I was, I learned in the process, that number of Indian tourists coming to Uganda too have increased in recent years. And I can tell you, this is a global phenomenon, that in markets, where you know, yes there were Indian tourists but not in those numbers. Markets like not just Maldives and Sri Lanka, but faraway markets like Thailand, Serbia, Austria, these are all markets today where actually there is growing Indian tourists (Inaudible).
And a lot of that is actually reflected in the very rapid recovery of the airline industry in India. That if you look at the airline industry, which all over the world is going through a very difficult time. (Inaudible) the readout from India, actually is a relatively positive one, because it captures a lot of the interest today in tourism. It's also true that Indian exports today are doing very well, that a year ago, we actually, Prime Minister Modi set for us a very what, at that time, we thought was a very ambitious target of our export in goods, target of $400 million. Two years ago, we actually exceeded it by about 10%. And this year, we actually are probably adding maybe another $35 million to what we did previously.
So I say, you know this at some sort of, with some emphasis to give you that sense that when you think about India, this is a very energetic economy at this time, very robust in its growth, very strong in its prospects. Now having said that, I also want to find out what's in it for you? And the example which I gave the minister earlier in the afternoon. A year ago, when the Ukraine conflict started, obviously the first hit which the world economy took was in the price of oil. Very soon thereafter, there was a big issue with the price of wheat, because the oil prices, of course, was a more complicated issue. The wheat was a direct outcome of the lack of exports from Ukraine, which is a big exporter of wheat. What was a less noticed story was actually the problems which a country like India faced in terms of edible oil, because we were big importers of sunflower oil from Ukraine. And the pressure on us to find compensatory resources actually took Indian importers well beyond their traditional sources, a lot of those sources were in the ASEAN. It actually took them to Latin America. So, if you look today at the big spike in India's trade with Latin America, interestingly, some of that is oil in terms of fuel oil, but a large part of it is oil in terms of edible oil. And I say this as an example of what other kinds of demands that the Indian market (Inaudible). So even when we speak about greater infrastructure growth in India, or whether when we speak about the prosperity which comes with better health and better education, with stronger social delivery; all these actually are factors of demand. And the challenge, I would say, the business challenge for the relationship is really to look at what are the predicted demands at the two ends and to see whether there is a strategy to target those demands.
Now, those demands, as a part could be, in services, they could be demand of tourists, but they could be demands of consumption, like the edible oil case that I mentioned, and probably a lot in between. So, I really think today that part of our growing relationship with Africa, relationship with Uganda, because that is very much at the center of what we're doing with Africa. There are the other bits, which we spoke about, the education, the training, the exchanges, development partnership. But to me, the core of the relationship, which we need to address is how do we expand this business between our two countries and I certainly would urge all of you to look at these possibilities and I certainly assure you from our side, there is a great deal of interest, a lot of empathy in actually trying to find ways of growing this trade and I hope today's evening is one small contribution to enhancing your interest in this relationship. Thank you very much.
Kampala
April 11, 2023