Devirupa Mitra

Lusaka, Jan 6 Indian Vice President Hamid Ansari arrived in this Zambian capital on Tuesday on the first leg of his three-nation African tour aimed at renewing old ties with the leadership of these countries.

The Boeing-747 special aircraft carrying the vice-president landed at the lush green Lusaka International Airport at 3.30 p.m. and was greeted by colourful dancers.

Ansari, his wife and the high-level Indian delegation were received by Zambian Vice President George Kunda. Zambia has a population of 12.5 million and an area one-fourth of India's size.

Ansari's visit to the three African countries — Zambia, Malawi and Botswana — comes after a long gap of high-level visits from India.

"The intensity of our engagement did go down," Ansari admitted, but asserted that "the fact that we remembered and took steps to correct it is what's important".

He felt that the "purpose of this visit is to re-engage at the personal level of leadership of the three countries".

While India already has some investment and trade with African countries, there was place to "move into a higher gear" with India's own training and financial assistance capabilities having increased over the years.

Africa has seen resurgence in competition for its resources among not just western countries, but also rising economies like China and India.

China has been able to garner a substantial part of the resources, executing a number of highly visible infrastructure projects in return.

The total annual trade volume with Africa is $39 billion — while China has three times bigger trade at $116 billion.

In 2008, India organised the India Africa Forum Summit, which many African heads of states and ministers attended in New Delhi. Among them was Rupiah Banda, who was then the Zambian Vice President and now is the President.

"They have one or two big projects in which Indian lines of credit will be made available and will be finalised in the next two or three days," said Ansari.

He emphasised that India's approach was to let the African countries take the lead in deciding what assistance they required.

"Our assistance will be determined by the countries themselves. It will not be something that we unilaterally thrust upon them," the vice president said.

India is likely to announce a line of credit of $50 million for a hydropower project, which is being jointly implemented by Tata Africa Holdings and Zambia Electricity Supply Company.