New Delhi, March 15, GNA - Vice President John Dramani Mahama on Mond= ay advised African leaders participating in the Confederation of Indian Industry, EXIM Bank business conclave in New Delhi, India, to use the opportunity to fight hunger, poverty and diseases.

"Africa's relationship with India can be traced back from colonization=

when we were engaged in wars of freedom and other struggles to free ourselves from our colonial masters, and since then, our partnership has been growing much stronger."

Vice President Mahama was addressing the opening session of the sixth Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) at New Delhi, India. The three-day conference themed: "Developing Synergies; Creating a Vision," is organised and sponsored by CII in collaboration with the Exp= ort and Import (EXIM) Bank of India and the Government of India.

It attracted about one thousand participants, made up of Presidents, V= ice Presidents, Ministers of State, Government and Private Business Officials=

from India and the African Continent.

The major levels of engagement and partnerships would be focused on education, Food and Agriculture, Skills and Capacity Development, Health and poverty alleviation among participating countries.

The Vice President indicated that they could fight hunger, poverty and=

disease by embarking on massive infrastructural development including hea= lth facilities, schools, roads and drawing workable agricultural programmes throughout the African continent.

"By providing health facilities, we can help train health personnel to provide services, whereas schools can also turn out professionals with ro= ads and agriculture providing jobs and food security respectively." He said India had over the years improved tremendously in Agriculture,=

Telecommunication and other Industrial activities because of their commitment to achieving such goals, and appealed to participating African=

countries to use the opportunity offered by India to build the capacities= of their professionals in the same direction.

=C4frica's time has come, and this is the time for us to take advantag= e of opportunities here to grow and realize our future development dreams and aspirations in our various countries," he said.

Mr Anand Sharma, India's Minister for Commerce and Industry, said the partnership between India and Africa had the ultimate aim of eradicating malnutrition, pandemics, poverty and to promte quality education, good health and food sufficiency in participating countries.

To achieve these, he announced that India was currently sponsoring 15,= 000 African Students in various fields of development to go back to their various countries to support their development programmes. "The Government of India is collaborating with African countries to dou= ble sponsorship to African students in our country to learn more on telecommunication, automobile and other Industrial and Vocational Trainin= g programmes," he added Mr S.M. Krishna, Indian Minister for External Affairs, announced that the Indian Government would soon establish 19 institutions in Africa which wo= uld cover the areas of Information Technology, Education and Planning, Vocational Training Institutes, Human Settlement, Rehabilitation and skil= ls training programmes for professionals. He said the Indian Pan-African eNetwork project which had begun in som= e African counties, would soon be extended to 47 more countries in the comi= ng years and called on beneficiary African Counties to embrace the programme= to facilitate communication in their countries.