The Federal Government and the Republic of India have begun moves to upgrade the mutual relationship existing between them, in areas of human capacity development, e-government, industrialisation, and ICT.

This was made known when the Indian High Commissioner to Nigeria, Abhay Thakur paid a courtesy call to the Minister of Communications in his Office at Abuja.

Addressing the Minister and his management team, the High Commissioner, Abhay Thakur said he had served in several countries where the Government of India did tremendously well by supporting the country’s e-government projects.

Abhay thanked the Minister of Communications, Dr Adebayo Shittu, for his relentless cooperation over the recent years in partnership with the Republic of India, and thereby promised Indian Government’s readiness to cooperate with Nigeria in e-government developmental projects and human capacity development.

Responding to the visit, the Minister said India is one of the best countries Nigeria has enjoyed mutually beneficial diplomatic relationship in terms of partnership and cooperation.

Shittu urged the Commissioner to expand India’s capacity training for engineering staff of the Ministry to boost the nation’s human capacity base for rapid development.

He urged the Commissioner to appeal to Indian companies to translate their investment, plans and interest on Nigerian soil to reality to boost the economic fortunes of both countries.

According to Shittu, a lot of Indian companies had often indicated interest to invest in Nigeria by way of establishing industries but rarely translate such into action, hence, the need to encourage them to translate such interest to action.

He added that Nigeria is a hospitable and friendly country which is safe for any company to invest. He used the moment to call on international companies/communities to come and invest in Nigeria.

Adebayo called on the Commissioner to partner with Nigeria in building the proposed ICT Park in Abuja which is expected to be a free trade zone that would add beauty and elegance to the country as well as boost revenue base of the investors.