LONDON — China's increasing influence in Africa has attracted great attention in recent years. But Asia's other rising power, India, is also becoming more active on this front, as its economic links are moving beyond its traditional partners in the British Commonwealth.
India's nonoil trade with West Africa currently stands at more than $3 billion and is rising fast, accounting for 1.2 percent of the country's total foreign trade.
India's economic activity in Africa goes far beyond its ever popular Bollywood movies. Indian investment in Cote d'Ivoire (also known as Ivory Coast) is expected to grow to $1 billion by 2011, which represents 10 percent of total Indian foreign investment in the last decade. India's state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC Videsh) produces Sudanese oil, and over the next two years Indian diplomatic missions will open in Mali, Gabon, Niger and Burkina Faso.