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India funds agricultural mechanisation in Ghana

Last Updated 28 January 2015, 06:48 IST

In yet another sign of its growing influence across Africa, India has provided Ghana with $150-million line of credit to support the implementation of an Agricultural Mechanisation Service Centre (AMSEC) projects intended to provide farmers all over the country with affordable and timely access to farm power machinery.


Speaking at a ceremony to mark India's 66th Republic Day, Ghana's Interior Minister Mark Owen Woyongo said that India has also provided another $30-million line of credit to be used for the rehabilitation and upgrade of potable water in the Yendi area of the northern region.

Under the AMSEC project, farmers will benefit in their land preparation with planters for precision planting, boom sprayers and pumps for proper crop maintenance, and combine harvesters for effective harvesting.

Other goals of the AMSEC programme are to increase the low number of tractor to farmer ratio as well as reduce the drudgery and tediousness associated with manual farming operations.

Woyongo said India's contribution to Ghana's development was due to the "traditional bond of friendship and cooperation forged at the political level that have manifested in the steady growth of economic cooperation between the two countries".

"India continues to provide assistance to Ghana through various bilateral and multilateral programmes," he said, and listed these to include the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) and the Special Commonwealth African Assistance Plan.

"Under these programmes, emphasis is placed on human resource development in areas such as information, communication and technology, food processing, biotechnology, entrepreneurship development and tool designing," Woyongo added.

India's High Commissioner in Accra, Jeeva Sagar, said a wide range of talents and socio-cultural flavours from across his country blend to produce one of the finest human resources pools.

"Whether it's an Indian scientist at the US' National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), or an Indian professor at Harvard, or the ubiquitous Indian IT specialist, or a medical doctor or a steel and cement maker in West Africa, they all demonstrate this great Indian spirit of harmony and peace," he said.

The high commissioner said the relationship between the two countries was rooted in history, adding that when the government of Ghana thanks India for funding the construction of a fishing plant in the country, "it is not the amount of fund extended but rather, the number of lives of fishermen and women that India has been able to touch".

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(Published 28 January 2015, 06:48 IST)

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