- Saturday, November 23, 2024
By: India Weekly Staff
India’s progress and prosperity can create new opportunities that can benefit Uganda, the country’s external affairs minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar has said, as he met the Indian business community in Kampala and encouraged it to bolster bilateral business ties for growth and development.
Jaishankar is on a two-nation visit to Uganda and Mozambique from April 10 to15 to strengthen India’s strong bilateral ties with the two African countries.
Honoured to pay homage to Bapu, the apostle of peace and non-violence, in Jinja at the source of the Nile.
Gandhiji’s ashes, immersed in the Nile, reflects the universality of his message. And also his deep and abiding bond with Africa. pic.twitter.com/ft8YzSuYFH
— Dr. S. Jaishankar (@DrSJaishankar) April 12, 2023
“India’s progress and prosperity create new opportunities that can benefit Uganda. Just as India’s experiences can help Uganda’s development journey,” he tweeted on Tuesday (11) after his meeting with the Indian business community.
Addressing the community, Jaishankar spoke about the problems that India faced due to the war in Ukraine. He said when the Ukraine conflict started a year ago, the first hit that the world economy took was the price of oil.
Great to discuss Millets and their importance in Ugandan culture.
Shree Anna is another facet binding us together.#InternationalYearofMillets#IYOM2023 pic.twitter.com/IBdnwaYK4A
— Dr. S. Jaishankar (@DrSJaishankar) April 12, 2023
“Very soon thereafter, there was a big issue with the price of wheat, because the oil prices, of course, were a more complicated issue. The wheat was a direct outcome of the lack of exports from Ukraine, which is a big exporter of wheat,” he said.
Jaishankar said what was a less noticed story, however, was the problems that India faced in terms of edible oil.
“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,” he said.
“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,” he said in a statement issued by the ministry of external affairs on Wednesday (12).
India imports palm oil from Indonesia and Malaysia, while soybean oil comes from Brazil and Argentina In his address, Jaishankar also highlighted India’s growing relationship and development partnership with Africa, especially its ties with Uganda.
“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,” he said.
Jaishankar also paid homage to Mahatma Gandi in the Ugandan city of Jinja.
“Honoured to pay homage to Bapu, the apostle of peace and non-violence, in Jinja at the source of the Nile. Gandhiji’s ashes, immersed in the Nile, reflects the universality of his message. And also his deep and abiding bond with Africa,” he tweeted along with a picture.
(PTI)
