Shri Arindam Bagchi, Official Spokesperson: A very good afternoon to all of you. Thank you for joining us for this special media briefing on the occasion of the visit of the President of the United Republic of Tanzania. To give us a sense of the conversations that have just taken place between the Prime Minister and the visiting dignitary, we have with us Shri. Dammu Ravi, Secretary (ER) in the Ministry of External Affairs. Also joining us on the dais, Joint Secretary (East and South Africa), Shri Puneet Kundal, as well as our High Commissioner to Tanzania Shri Binaya Srikanta Pradhan. Sir, without further ado, may I hand over the floor for opening remarks and then we can open the floor for some questions.
Shri Dammu Ravi, Secretary (ER): Thank you Arindam and good afternoon to all for being here today for this important visit of the President of Tanzania. Let me give you a slight brief background to the visit and then we can go through the question and answers or the clarification that you might have. So President Samia Suluhu Hassan of Tanzania is visiting India from 9th and 10th of October now. This is her first visit to India as President and also the first visit by any African Head of State after the entry of the African Union in the G20. The last presidential visit from Tanzania was in June 2015 when President Kikwete visited India on a State Visit. Prime Minister Modi had visited Tanzania in July 2016. The latest high level visit to Tanzania was by our External Affairs Minister from July this year, to co-chair the Joint Commission meeting during which he had also met with President Samia Suluhu. The Speaker of Lok Sabha, Shri Om Birla, had also visited Tanzania earlier in January this year. India-Tanzania relations are on a firm footing. We have robust bilateral institutional mechanisms and these meetings have been held regularly. These include ten rounds of Joint Commission meetings, two rounds of Joint Defence Coordination Committee meetings, four rounds of Joint Trade Committee meetings besides the Foreign Office Consultations and several joint working groups in numerous sectors. We also have a robust development partnership with Tanzania. India is the biggest development partner in Tanzania in the development cooperation both in terms of lines of credit, ITEC slots and ICCR scholarships. India is the largest destination for Tanzania's exports and both countries have a bilateral trade of $6.4 billion of which India's exports alone amount to the value of $3.9 billion and the imports from Tanzania amount to $2.4 billion in 2022-2023. India is the fifth largest investor in Tanzania with about $3.7 billion investments, covering several sectors. About 630 projects have been executed by the Indian companies and generated about 60,000 jobs locally. India-Tanzania relations have registered good progress in recent times which is why today's visit is very significant that both sides have agreed to elevate the relationship to that of a strategic partnership. We are also exploring new areas of cooperation including in trade in local currencies. This is one of the topics discussed between the two leaders and also the proposal to set up an Indian industrial park in Tanzania and provide vocational training facilities for Tanzanian youth in Tanzania, with the cooperation of India so that this would create greater employment opportunities for the Tanzanian youth. We also are exploring ways and means to increase trade and economic cooperation between our two countries and several sectors were discussed today and both leaders have entrusted responsibility to identify new areas and new vistas of cooperation to our ministers. India has offered an additional 1,000 ITEC training slots to Tanzania for capacity building in new and upcoming areas especially in smart ports, civil aviation, management, biotechnology and artificial intelligence. Today both countries have signed six Memorandum of Understandings in various fields that reflect the desire of the two countries to further intensify our interaction and strengthen our bilateral relations and these Memorandum of Understanding include one between the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology of India and the Ministry of Information Communication and Information Technology of Tanzania on cooperation in the field of sharing successful digital solutions implemented at population scale for digital transformation. Cultural exchange programs between the two countries have also been renewed for the years 2023 to 2027 and MoU for cooperation in sports were also signed and MoU for technical cooperation in the field of shipping particularly on sharing white shipping information. MoU between the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust of India and the Tanzania Investment Centre for setting up of an industrial park in Tanzania to help Indian manufacturing take place in that part of Tanzania. So, MoU between Cochin Shipping Yard and Marine Services Corporation Limited in maritime cooperation, that was another MoU signed. The Government of Tanzania also announced that they would be joining the international Big Cat Alliance and the Global Biofuel Alliance. A lot of discussion also happened on ways and means to cooperate in the biofuel sector to make Tanzanians to move forward in the green energy area. Tanzania and India are maritime neighbours with a long history of trade and people to people linkages. Being a littoral state of Africa, Tanzania has an important place in India's vision of SAGAR, Security And Growth for All in the Region; and also coincides with the African Union vision for peace and security in Africa with focus on development of blue economy, ocean economy for accelerated economic growth. Both countries have extensive maritime cooperation, extensive hydrography survey was done by India between 2013 and 2017 for major Tanzanian ports, in particular Dar es Salaam, Tanga and Zanzibar and Pemba. In addition to several ships visiting, the first ever trilateral maritime exercise with Tanzania and Mozambique was held in October 2022 and the first ever bilateral EEZ surveillance was held in July 2023. We have also seen a growth in the areas of defence, there have been visits by the Defence Minister of Tanzania to India in August 2022 and February 2023 during which both sides agreed to expand the scope of defence cooperation during the second Joint Defence Cooperation Committee meeting of June 2023. A five-year roadmap for defence cooperation was concluded between the two sides and a six-member Indian military training team is posted at the Command and Staff College in Tanzania. Two defence expos have already been held in Dar es Salaam, one in May last year and October this year, which saw participation of several Indian defence companies in Tanzania. Both sides are currently negotiating some defence deals. In the development cooperation space, Tanzania is India's biggest partner, seeking...having obtained the constitutional financing and capacity-building programs with our LOCs amount to $1.1 billion, of which a significant part of it has been spent mostly for irrigation projects in Tanzania. We are supplying, in 24 towns, water supply has been provided under this Indian LOCs. Our ITEC scholarships in total amount about 5,000 scholarships so far and annually we offer to Tanzania about 750 training slots, which includes 450 ITEC, 226 defence and 70 ICCR long-term scholarships. So India remains the number one destination for Tanzanian nationals for medical tourism and higher technical education. As you know, recently the IIT overseas campus was set up in Zanzibar, and this has been hailed as a very significant move by the Tanzanian President, she has thanked, deeply appreciated Prime Minister for this gesture of taking India's higher education to Africa and to be able to provide that technical education of a high level to African students. So already from this October, the first three sessions will start with several students already enrolled. The institution will provide world-class technical education to Tanzanian youth and also at the pan-African level. It is a reflection of our commitment to the global South in the spirit of South-South cooperation and for us to share the expertise of the best of our institutions with our friends and partners in Africa. Indian hospitals are also showing great interest in investing in Tanzania. Both sides also discussed issues related to reform of the United Nations. Both countries are in agreement to work together on the much needed reform of the UN Security Council through expansion in both categories of membership. Tanzania also gave the support for Indian non-permanent election bid for the term 2028-2029 and Tanzania congratulated India on a successful G20 presidency and the G20 New Delhi Leaders’ Declaration, adopted at the G20 Leaders’ Summit last September, in which G20 leaders welcomed the African Union as a permanent member of the G20 and the Tanzanian President deeply appreciated India's gesture, particularly Honourable Prime Minister Modi's personal initiative in bringing together the leadership of the G20, to bring African Union into G20 as a permanent member. Tomorrow, on the 10th of October, the President Samia Suluhu Hassan will attend the India-Tanzanian Business and Investment Forum, where she will deliver the keynote address to the Indian and Tanzanian business communities. She will also hold one-on-one meetings with the key Indian business leaders seeking investments into Tanzania. So the visit of President Samia Suluhu Hassan is expected to give a further impetus to bilateral relations and promote economic linkages between our two countries, including investment in Tanzania by Indian entrepreneurs. I thank you very much. If there are any questions, I will be able to take from here. Thank you.
Shri Arindam Bagchi, Official Spokesperson: Thank you. Before I open the floor, please introduce yourself and the organization that you represent.
Yeshi Seli: Good evening. This is Yeshi Seli from the New Indian Express. I would like to know what is the status of the trade in local currencies? Did it start last year? If yes, have there been some transactions which will be happening in rupee? And also this Big Cat Alliance, does this translate in getting more cheetahs from there or…?
Shri Arindam Bagchi, Official Spokesperson: Would you like to take one by one, Sir?
Shri Ravi, Secretary (ER): Maybe I will take a couple of more and come back.
Sudhi Ranjan: Sir, Sudhi Ranjan from Bloomberg here. If you could give us an understanding on the discussions that were there on extending digital payments interface to Tanzania and also, Sir, any discussion between India and Tanzania on local currency trade and where are those discussions, Sir?
Sidhant: Sidhant from WION. My question to you is what's Tanzania's view on the Indo-Pacific vision? They are our Indian Ocean neighbour, so we share the Indian Ocean. So what's their view on the Indo-Pacific vision?
Meghna Dev: Sir Meghna Dev from DD News. There has been an MoU on digital infrastructure. I wanted to ask is there any specific interest in any digital public infrastructure that India already has other than UPI, obviously?
Shri Arindam Bagchi, Official Spokesperson: I think it's more of an enabling thing, but I would say so. Yeah.
Shri Dammu Ravi, Secretary (ER): So anyway, let me try and answer some of these questions that come about. So one is the trade in local currencies. So last year when this initiative started from our side, wanting to push the INR, rupee currency trading, so it started off only last year and then the experts on both sides actually met to understanding and how do you enable this to happen. And I think the vostro account was started on both sides. So some amount of transactions have already happened, although I must say it's a very small amount. I'm not sure exactly the number, maybe 50 million or so...about 50 million dollars worth of items in local currency has already taken place. In my view, it is still very small, but I think it's a good beginning we made. What we are going to do is, you know, a lot of workshops and conferences need to be held, seminars and actually how one can utilise this. So it's a transition or I must say it is more of understanding how it works. So both businesses on either side are excited, but they need to know how this actually operates. So I think this work in progress, I must say, it will move forward as more and more businesses tap into this local currency...trading in local currency.
Now look at the digital payments interface. Now again, the technical experts on both sides have had a chance to meet. But this again, we have to get into details to understanding how this can happen, which is why the MoU today that was signed for the digital public infrastructure is very useful and I think it will set the platform for bilateral cooperation in that space. It will give an opening for Indian companies in, let's say, setting up AADHARs or it's in the UPI, the FinTech space, where they will be able to go and talk with the government authorities and then offer their services to them. I believe there's a lot of scope, but which is why the MoU sets that base and the foundation for taking it forward further. So this is one area where both sides have interest. I think the President today also mentioned her interest to do local currency digital transactions, and she asked Prime Minister Modi's assistance and help, to enable the country to move in this line.
On the Indo-Pacific region in particular, I think we should understand that Tanzania as much as is an Indian Ocean country and they have significant interest in ensuring that the shipping lines are free from any piracy, any interference, the commercial lines are free from any kind of restrictions that they will be facing. So to that extent, both leaders again discussed about the need for cooperation in the maritime security, particularly in controlling piracy and drug trafficking and terrorism. So this is what was discussed today, but we believe that Tanzania being part of the Indian Ocean, is very much part of the Indo-Pacific region and cooperation in this area is very important for both sides.
So the Big Cat Alliance, this is an area where India-led initiative, but where the countries will join, will share information about the wildlife and cats in particular. Cheetahs are actually a bilateral cooperation. It's a bilateral understanding between India, especially entered into with South Africa and Namibia. This doesn't come under the cheetahs exchanges or India taking it in future at some stage, is not part of this alliance. But I think what both sides will do is research, cooperation, information sharing, the habitat of the big cats. I think that is what is envisaged in this cooperation.
Rishikesh: Hello Sir, Rishikesh from PTI. Is there any additional line of credit offered to Tanzania and especially for defence, as you said that some defence deals are under negotiation?
Shri Arindam Bagchi, Official Spokesperson: Additional LOC. Okay. You had a follow-up question? Okay, go ahead.
Meghna Dev: Meghna from DD News. We already have extended a line of credit for the water partnership, water supply. Is there any push for phase two or more line of credit to reach more towns in terms of water supply?
Shri Arindam Bagchi, Official Spokesperson: You mean the project or the LOC? Okay. If there are no other questions, Sir, we will close with that.
Mr. Dammu Ravi, Secretary (ER): So, anyway, thank you. I think this is an area of immense interest to Tanzania and we believe that the line of credit offered by India, $1.1 billion, is very well utilized. We have done about four projects under this so far out of six and these have been very well executed so far, and they are benefiting the Tanzanian people in particular to reaching out water supply to almost six to eight million people. I don't know the exact number but something like that. And 24 towns are getting water supply under the lines of credit. The President today deeply appreciated India's gesture, offer of line of credit, which has been very well utilized. But of course there is greater interest to ask, to seek cooperation and a line of credit for other projects. One of which is they are seeking a similar kind of water supply for a new capital, Dodoma. Tanzania has a new capital now. They want to seek water supply from Lake Victoria, but this is again...we don't have details of what the DPR, has not been made yet. So we have to wait for their request in details for us to be able to respond to it. Of course they are also asking for greater cooperation in trade, whether trade supply LOC can be provided, is also one more request they have made but we will have to see the details of how we can make it happen. I think the defence LOC is another item where they have definitely asked for buying defence equipment from India and they also sought supply lines in that area. But we have to see how we can take it forward because that requires detailing of the items and the repayment issue, the schedules of payments. So those details we will eventually internally discuss amongst the Ministry of Defence and the concerned line ministries that how we can execute it. Thank you very much.
Shri Arindam Bagchi, Official Spokesperson: Thank you very much, Sir. Thank you also to our Joint Secretary, (E&SA), as well as to High Commissioner for their presence. Good afternoon.