Ethiopia Ready To Increase Trade Exchanges With India.

Ethiopia today assured India that it will step up its trade ties with it and increase imports of Indian goods and services.

The assurance was given in the meeting between External Affairs Minister S M Krishna and Ethiopian Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Haile Mariam Desalegn here, official sources told PTI.

Krishna is currently on a four-nation trip to Africa during which he will attend the foreign ministers meeting of the second Indo-Africa summit to be held here tomorrow.

Desalegn said his country was ready to augment its trade exchanges with India, including increasing its share of imports.

Besides attending the Indo-Africa summit here, Krishna will also accompany Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Tanzania for his visit.

Singh will arrive here tomorrow to attend the May 24-25 summit that would also be attended by African Union''s current chairman, Equatorial Guniea''s President Theodore Obiang Nguema, Malawian leader Bingu wa Mutharika and the pan-African bloc''s Commission chief Jean Ping.

Also expected are the presidents of Algeria, Egypt, Senegal and South Africa as well as the leaders of Africa''s eight regional economic groups.

This will be the second such summit after African leaders met Indian officials in New Delhi in 2008 with an aim to better trade relations between the two regions.

Source : news.in.msn.com