Airtel has championed India-Africa collaboration through the sponsorship of this year’s Ind0-Africa ICT Expo. The event took place this week at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre (KICC) in Nairobi, Kenya.
The conference was attended by top-level executives and corporate decision makers who included India’s Minister of Communications & IT, Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad, Kenya’s Mining Cabinet Secretary Najib Balala, the outgoing High Commissioner of India Mr. Yogeshwar Varma, Chief Executive Officer – ICT Authority, Victor Kyalo as well as ICT Ministers from Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi, Somalia, Tanzania, Ethiopia and South Sudan.
“As Bharti Airtel, we are delighted to be championing Indo-Africa collaboration through the sponsorship of this Expo. India has emerged as one of the prominent trading partners for Africa and both regions have shown complementarities for business to foster and grow. We believe that the trade relations between India & Africa will continue to grow exponentially in order to attract more investors”, Airtel Africa Chief Executive Officer Christian de Faria said,
The event brought together over 100 companies from Africa and India for the exhibition and conference. It attracted over 2,000 visitors with a regional focus which included Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Tanzania, South Sudan, Burundi, Rwanda and Somalia. The interaction created a platform for Indian and African countries to showcase ICT innovations as well as bring together thought leaders to discuss solutions that will help transform the ICT sector.
Recent evaluations indicate that the economy of the African continent, as a whole, is the world’s second largest after Asia. Africa’s GDP is projected to rise by an average of over 6% a year between 2013 and 2023. All these facts serve to point out that Africa is an emerging market, with potential that needs to be tapped.
