African Development Bank’s annual meet in Ahmedabad in May

Kigali, Feb 23 (IANS) The annual conference of the African Development Bank (AfDB) will be held in India's Ahmedabad in May, an Indian official said.

"We (India) are a minority shareholder in African Development Bank and every bank has its annual conference..basically it is the shareholders meeting of the bank which will be held in Ahmedabad from May 19-24," said Amar Sinha, Secretary (Economic Relations) in the Indian External Affairs Ministry at a media briefing during the visit of Vice President Hamid Ansari to Rwanda, said an official statement.

"Along with it we are expecting 10 or 12 Heads of State and Heads of Government also visiting and our Prime Minister (Narendra Modi) will be inaugurating it," he added.

On the sidelines of the event, India is expecting number of bilateral meets with the African leaders.

On the Indian focus during the event, Sinha said: "There would be our own initiative of International Solar Alliance and we will be doing a presentation on that and the Solar Alliance document would be placed there for signature."

"We now have got 25 signatures which is sufficient enough to get it implemented and get into force but since there were 121 co-sponsors in November, so all the countries that have completed their formalities for signature will have an opportunity to sign that in Ahmedabad," Sinha added.

The first direct flight between Indian and Rwanda is expected to start service from Kigali to Mumbai from April 3. The bilateral air access agreement between the two countries was signed during Ansari's three-day visit to the East African country beginning February 19.

The Department of Economic Affairs is the nodal ministry organising the annual meeting at Ahmedabad.

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