When trade winds smell sweet

Font Size

Print

Feedback

Email

Discuss

: stations in 25 African countries. As a result, Indian companies tend to be more integrated into the local economy than China’s. They employ more Africans than do Chinese firms, who often import workers. Indian firms may thus be less vulnerable to a populist backlash.

As so often with awkward neighbours, India dislikes being mentioned in the same breath as China. And in any discussion of geopolitics and Africa, where China’s race for resources tends to be called neo-imperial, any mention of parallels makes India squirm. So the talk at the summit was not about resources but about India’s contribution to African development. To make it clear that this was not a rerun of the Beijing shindig in 2006, the format in Delhi was as different as possible. For the visitors, though, these distinctions mattered little. Treated to some fine luxury, far from any sanitation project, all they smelt was opportunity.