By Olasunkanmi Akoni & Monsur Olowoopejo
LAGOS—The Indian Government is to invest $1.5 trillion to develop infrastructure in the West African sub-region in the next 10 years just as Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan appealed to Indian entrepreneurs to take advantage of the restructuring effort of the Federal Government by investing in the Niger Delta region.

Toward the realisation of this, the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS and the Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, FICCI, signed a Memorandum of Understanding, MoU, on establishment of strategic partnership and economic cooperation in the sub- region.

Representative of the Indian government, Minister for Commerce and Industry, Mr. Anand Sharma, said this at the opening of a two-day ECOWAS/India Trade and Economic Forum in Lagos, yesterday.

According to Sharma, the money will be used to develop all sectors in West African states.

In an address, the Vice- President, who was represented by Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State, described the partnership as “one that will bring forth not just business but also an exchange of human resource capacity that can lead to a lot of benefit mutually to our people in the area of skills and in our different uniquely bound national development.”

Chief Achike Udenwa , Minister of Commerce  and Industry, noted that the event marked the beginning of a new era in the trade and investment  relations between the ECOWAS member-states and India.