Namibia Minister for Mines & Energy Obeth Kandjoze called on Minister of Steel & Mines Narendra Singh Tomar at Udyog Bhawan last evening. He was accompanied by representatives of industry and other government officials. The Minister is in India to attend the “India Africa Forum Summit-2015”. Minister of Steel & Mines Shri Narendra Singh Tomar highlighted the need for mutual cooperation in mineral resource development. India and Namibia had signed an MOU in 2009 for cooperation in the field of geology and mineral resources. A Joint Working Group was also constituted to take things forward. Both the Ministers were in agreement that the MOU implementation needs to be expedited and the next meeting of Joint Working Group has to be held at the earliest.
Tomar remarked that there are several Indian companies that want to invest in Namibia in the area of minerals. However, two issues are hindering the process, namely difficulties in obtaining work permits and requirement of South African transit visa. The Minister also urged them to complete the ratification formalities to operationalised the agreement on Cooperation in peaceful purposes of nuclear energy. The Minister stated that under the leadership of Shri Narendra Modi, India’s relations with foreign countries have been strengthened significantly, and a new era has been ushered in the Mining sector by new policies and decisions. Kandjoze said that the issues raised by Shri Tomar are indeed bottlenecks to increasing investment in Namibia and their government is taking all possible steps to remove these hurdles. He explained how Namibia intends to encourage sustainable mining and sought cooperation from India in R&D and technology development.