Bilateral Ties With Nigeria Vital To India’s Foreign Policy – Envoy

Indian High Commissioner to Nigeria, Gangadharan Balasubramanian has assured that strengthening bilateral ties with Nigeria remains a strategic part of his country’s foreign policy as both countries have a lot to benefit.

Balasubramanian said this during the commemoration of the Indian Technical and Economic Programme (ITEC) 2022 at the High Commission in Abuja on Thursday.

The ITEC Day 2022 was celebrated with about 250 ITEC alumni and Nigerian dignitaries in attendance. The annual commemoration also gives unique opportunities to ITEC Alumni to reconnect with each other.

According to the envoy the programme has been successful in Nigeria in the past 58 years as thousands of Nigerians have benefitted from various fields such as defense training, ICT, Science Technology and Innovation (STI) Renewable energy, and made meaningful impacts and contributions to Nigeria’s development.

He said that the ITEC programme is human -centric and in line with the vision of India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi. He added that India’s development partnership is in line with the priorities of partner countries and on terms that are comfortable with the partner countries.

He said “ITEC was started by India in 1964 and since then we have been exchanging various courses for our friends in partner countries including Nigeria and I am very happy to say that many thousand Nigerians have actually benefited.

“We give around 250 slots in the civilian sector and about 150 slots for training, short term courses in the defense sector and most of them have been utilized on a regular basis.

“So for a period of 58 years, you can see how these numbers would have multiplied and we are very happy to see friends in Nigeria who have done these short-term programmes, equipped themselves and have come back to contribute to the economy and to the development of Nigeria.