In a trip aimed to strengthen bilateral cooperation between India and strategic African nations, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday left for a six-day tour of Ethiopia and Tanzania. Accompanied by a high-level delegation, Singh arrived at Addis Ababa on Monday afternoon (India time), where he will attend the India-Africa Forum Summit, before proceeding to Dar es Salaam, in Tanzania.

The Second India-Africa Forum Summit is being held against the backdrop of ?an Africa on the move?, with the continent being courted by major and emerging powers for its resources and markets.

He will co-chair the two-day summit that starts on Tuesday with Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, chairman of the African Union (AU) and President of Equatorial Guinea. Jean Ping, the chairperson of the African Union Commission, will also take part in the summit. The summit will culminate with the Addis Ababa Declaration and the Africa-India Framework for Enhanced Cooperation, which will map out an ambitious blueprint of India-Africa engagement for the next few years.

Leaders from 15 African countries, chosen by the AU under a participatory formula worked out between India and the AU in the Gambian capital Banjul in the summer of 2006, will represent Africa at the summit.

The African countries participating in the summit are Algeria, Burundi, Chad, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Libya, Malawi, Namibia, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Swaziland.

Singh’s trip to Ethiopia and Tanzania is only his fourth African visit in his eight-year premiership, pledging development support in exchange for trade agreements to fuel continued growth in India’s resource-intensive economy. At the end of the two-day summit Wednesday, Singh is expected to announce fresh lines of credit worth $500 million for a host of infrastructure projects and increase the number of scholarships for African students under the Indian government’s flagship Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) programme.

Rival emerging economies India and China are scouring the globe to secure energy resources, minerals and food. Both nations are also trying to extend their influence in Africa as they emerge as economic powers and appear keener to flex their diplomatic muscle.

China is around a decade ahead of India in getting into Africa. Beijing’s investments in Ghana, for example, topped the entire Indian investment in the continent in 2006. India is trying to secure a greater presence as well as get African support for its bid for a permanent place on the UN Security Council, as the body is reformed to include emerging powers and developing nations.

?India is massively playing catch-up to China in Africa, and only in recent years is it trying to engage the continent in a serious way,? said Brahma Chellaney, professor at the New Delhi-based Centre for Policy Research. ?But they are trying to build political and economic ties, and position itself as different to China, which has acquired the image of being a new imperial power.?

India’s state-run oil firms are beginning to invest in countries including Nigeria and Kenya, while China has pumped billions of dollars into Sudanese oil, mineral-rich Zimbabwe and Zambia’s mining sector, among other countries.

With inputs from agencies