Chairman Mr GK Pillai addresses India Africa conference on food and security capacity building
February 06, 2018
Chairman Mr GK Pillai addressed the South-South Cooperation: India Africa Partnership for food and security capacity building, held at Mumbai on 23 January 2018.
“Our exports to African countries is estimated at USD 440 million of which agriculture exports is USD 38 million. Our programme is to double it by 2021 and quadruple by 2025,” said Mr Pillai. Africa provides a lot of business opportunities. However, the company faces several issues like port congestion, currency fluctuation and lack of qualified personnel in African countries, he said.
“Port congestion is the main issue as efficiency in some African countries needs to improve as port congestion hits exporters and demurrage charges are extremely high. Currency fluctuation is also a major issue for exports, Tata International is concerned over lack of qualified lab personnel’s in African countries. They are training local people for this,” Mr Pillai added.
Tata International has a substantial presence in several African nations such as South Africa, Kenya, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Uganda, among others. Several African countries namely Ehiopia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda have sought investment mainly in agriculture sector from the Indian corporates.
The conference aims at exploring and accessing the potential of India’s ongoing partnerships with Africa in the fields of agriculture, food security and capacity building through bilateral and trilateral initiatives. It also aims to study the role of India FDI for capacity building and value addition to the agricultural sector Africa through government-led and private sector initiatives.
