Transcription of Special media briefing by MEA on Prime Minister's visit to Namibia (July 09, 2025)
India - Ministry of External Affairs
July 09, 2025
Shri Randhir Jaiswal, Official Spokesperson: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I welcome you to this special press briefing on Prime Minister's ongoing state visit to Namibia.
We have with us Shri Dammu Ravi, Secretary (ER) in the Ministry of External Affairs. We are also joined by our High Commissioner to Namibia, Shri Rahul Shrivastava. And also Joint Secretary looking after Namibia in the Ministry of External Affairs, Shri Mayank Singh. With that I invite Secretary (ER) to make his initial remarks. Sir, over to you.
Shri Dammu Ravi, Secretary (ER): Thank you, Randhir, and good afternoon to all of you, and welcome for this press briefing. Honorable Prime Minister arrived today in the morning at the invitation of Honorable President of Namibia, Dr. Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah. As you all know that Honorable Prime Minister's last leg of his five-nation tour is ending here today in Namibia.
On his arrival, he was warmly welcomed by the ministers, and there was also a traditional dance. Thereafter, Honorable Prime Minister was welcomed by the Indian community at the hotel, and the formal program thereafter included Guard of Honor at the State House. There was a ceremonial welcome. He had a one-on-one discussion with the President of Namibia, delegation-level talks, and he also paid homage to the founding father of Namibia, Dr. Sam Nujoma, and Honorable Prime Minister was awarded the highest national award of Namibia, the "Order of the Most Ancient Welwitschia Mirabilis", and there was a banquet in honor of Honorable Prime Minister. And later today, he will be addressing the Parliament.
Friends, as you all know that this visit assumes importance in more than one way. This visit is taking place after 27 years by Prime Minister of India, and it is also the time when the President of Namibia has just assumed her office in March this year after a landslide victory, which means that there will be continuity in our relationship, and it will facilitate further deepening of the relationship.
The delegation-level talks covered a wide gamut of issues, and both sides had the opportunity to also expand the existing cooperation. The bilateral relationship, as you know, is underpinned by trade and economic interest ... investments on both sides.
The trade is about $600 million in favor of India, marginally, and investments from India are about $800 million, and the cooperation that we discussed was in the area of natural resources, because as you know that Namibia is endowed with rich natural resources like diamonds, lithium, copper, cobalt, graphite, all of these rich critical minerals are useful for our industry.
The cooperation in the area of health was discussed, which also included the possibility of Janaushadhi being introduced in Namibia, also supply of medicines and direct sourcing from India. The cooperation in the area of agriculture was another item that came up in the discussions, and there again, as Namibia has huge land tracts, there is a possibility of India supporting with equipment, machinery, and able to grow food crops for the food security of Namibia.
Defence cooperation, another area that came up for discussion, and most importantly, in the digital public infrastructure. Here again, Namibia is the first country in the world where NPCI, National Payment Corporation of India, and the Namibian Central Bank have entered into an agreement, a licensing agreement to deployment of UPI in Namibia for real-time payments. And this is a significant development. We believe that this will open up new avenues for cooperation in the digital space between our two countries.
Capacity building is another area that is ongoing. ITEC scholarship has been extensively used by Namibian experts, both defense and civilian, and here again, we have both sides discussed to expand this possibility of enhancing the cooperation and capacity building.
There were a few announcements today in terms of the agreements. The Memorandum of Understandings were one relating to setting up of Entrepreneurship Centre in Namibia, and the second is cooperation in the health. And there were three announcements made, one relating to the UPI, Unified Payment Interface. The second one is Namibia joining the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure, and Namibia also joining the Global Biofuel Alliance. These are very significant for bilateral cooperation, and we believe that the visit of Honorable Prime Minister will provide further impetus to our relationships.
Both sides also touched upon the multilateral issues. There was condemnation of terrorism in all its manifestations, including the Pahalgam terrorist attack when Namibia expressed solidarity for India. And there was also talk about reforming of the multilateral institutions, and there was a clear understanding by both the leaders that it's very important that multilateralism is strengthened for the South-South cooperation, and both sides to be able to find solutions for the challenges that the countries in the Global South are facing. So, there was a deep understanding on how India and Namibia can partner in this area. I will pause here, and if there are any questions that you might have, I'll take. Thank you very much.
Nishant Rai, DD News: Good evening, sir. Sir main Nishant Rai DD news se. Namibia aur Bharat ke paryavaran sajedari bhi lambe samay se rahi hai. Kya is bar isko lekar koi charcha hui hai?
[Approximate Translation: Question in Hindi] Good evening, sir. I'm from DD News. Namibia and India have had a long-standing environmental partnership. Was there any discussion on this during this visit?
Aparna, All India Radio: I am Aparna sir. I am from All India Radio. My question is the entry of Namibia into CDRI and Global Biofuel Alliance. How does it help India at a global level? Especially like India is a leader in energy commitments. How does it help India?
Unidentified Speaker: Sir, you mentioned that Namibia will be forming part of the coalition for disaster risk management. How will that benefit Namibia, and which elements of disaster risk management are being looked at particularly?
Shri Dammu Ravi, Secretary (ER): Nishant ji apne ye sawal uthaya ki environment ke bare mein dono desh ke kya partnership hogi. Aap jante hain 22 mein India aur Namibia ki partnership ki vajah se hum Cheetah relocate kiya. Abhi uska second phase ka baat chal raha hai. Lekin ye to successful partnership hai dono desh ke beech mein aur usko badhana padega aur experts ke beech mein abhi charcha chal raha hai. Toh dekhna padega ki kahan tak hum isko second phase mein le aa sakte hain.
[Approximate Translation: Question in Hindi] Mr. Nishant, you raised a question about the environmental partnership between the two countries. As you know, in 2022, due to the India-Namibia partnership, we were able to relocate cheetahs. Currently, discussions are underway regarding the second phase of that initiative. This has indeed been a successful partnership between the two countries, and it needs to be expanded. Experts are currently deliberating on it, so we'll have to see how far we can take this in the second phase.
On the question of CDRI and Global Biofuel Alliance, how it will help India, as you know that these are the narratives of the Global South, and it's a very important cooperation that will emerge out of this. Particularly in the case of CDRI is countries affected by these natural disasters, either it is floods or drought or even pandemics, how we can, both countries can cooperate. I think in recent times India has been very active in reaching out to our partner countries in providing these relief materials.
But that's a part we should be able to also look at early warning systems and how quickly both countries can respond to natural crises that may arise in this part of the world. Because you also know that climate change is affecting our nations very, very differently, and most countries in the Global South are vulnerable because of the climate change. So, we have to cooperate even stronger on it.
In the same light, I see the Global Biofuel Alliance as well, because alternatives to the oil, gas has to be formed. And this is a very good initiative India has successfully introduced, which is able to also save your own hard currency that countries would need to import. But this technology India has now very well experimented and successfully using in our country and in the Global South, through this Biofuel Alliance, will be able to reach out to them and introduce this technology.
I will take this moment to also request if Indian Ambassador can add, because he would know the crux of the bilateral relationship. You, Rahul.
Shri Rahul Shrivastava, High Commissioner to Namibia: Sir, in general, with the Prime Minister's visit, one of the highlights is that we are taking our relations to a higher strategic level. And by that, I mean that defense or critical minerals are some of the areas that were discussed. In defense, Namibia is interested in procurement of equipment from India. And we offered them a line of credit, especially for the defense. We have one for civil also.
On the environment, because we had Project Cheetah from ... we got cheetahs from Namibia ... it's important that they also become members of IBCA, the International Big Cat Alliance. And today that was also discussed. Namibia has assured that soon they would want to become members of that. There are a couple of more points which Prime Minister also mentioned.
It is during the rainy season here, which is towards the end of the year and beginning of January, February, the situation of malaria was quite bad in Namibia. So, they have requested help from us for malaria medicines. And after the Prime Minister's visit, we'll be soon delivering malaria medicines and also malaria diagnostic kits to Namibia.
There are a few more points in defense. For example, we will be donating some equipment. One is a simulator for their training schools. There's also some infrastructure, IT equipment to their training schools.
In Namibia, one more thing we are interested in is taking on some big infrastructure projects. We do have a couple of them. But the big ones, yes, we would be interested and we have offered this to the Namibians.
Shri Randhir Jaiswal, Official Spokesperson: With that, ladies and gentlemen, we come to the close of the session. Thank you very much.
Windhoek
July 09, 2025
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
