India-Ghana relations are the bilateral relations between

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

and

Ghana Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and To ...

. As members of the Commonwealth, India maintains a High Commission in Accra and Ghana has its High Commission in

New Delhi New Delhi (, , ''Naī Dillī'') is the capital of India and a part of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Parliament Ho ...

History

In 1817, Thomas Bowdich led a British delegation to

Kumasi Kumasi (historically spelled Comassie or Coomassie, usually spelled Kumase in Twi) is a city in the Ashanti Region, and is among the largest metropolitan areas in Ghana. Kumasi is located in a rain forest region near Lake Bosomtwe, and is t ...

in order to improve relations between the

Ashanti Empire The Asante Empire (Asante Twi: ), today commonly called the Ashanti Empire, was an Akan state that lasted between 1701 to 1901, in what is now modern-day Ghana. It expanded from the Ashanti Region to include most of Ghana as well as parts of Iv ...

and the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

. An Ashanti prince was skeptical of British motives in Ashanti, citing British presence in India. According to historian Edgerton, "The next day, an Asante prince asked Bowdich why, if Britain were so selfless, it had behaved so differently in India." India opened a

consulate A consulate is the office of a consul. A type of diplomatic mission, it is usually subordinate to the state's main representation in the capital of that foreign country (host state), usually an embassy (or, only between two Commonwealth c ...

in Accra in 1953 and established full-fledged diplomatic relations with Ghana immediately after its independence in 1957. The Indian High Commission in Accra is also concurrently accredited to

Burkina Faso Burkina Faso (, ; , ff, 𞤄𞤵𞤪𞤳𞤭𞤲𞤢 𞤊𞤢𞤧𞤮, italic=no) is a landlocked country in West Africa with an area of , bordered by Mali to the northwest, Niger to the northeast, Benin to the southeast, Togo and Ghana to ...

Togo Togo (), officially the Togolese Republic (french: République togolaise), is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Ghana to the west, Benin to the east and Burkina Faso to the north. It extends south to the Gulf of Guinea, where its c ...

and

Sierra Leone Sierra Leone,)]. officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered by Liberia to the southeast and Guinea surrounds the northern half of the nation. Covering a total area of , Sierr ...

. Ghana established its High Commission in New Delhi after its independence. The first

President of Ghana The president of the Republic of Ghana is the elected head of state and head of government of Ghana, as well as commander-in-chief of the Ghana Armed Forces. The current president of Ghana is Nana Akufo-Addo, who won the 2020 presidential el ...

, Kwame Nkrumah and India's first

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister i ...

Jawaharlal Nehru Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (; ; ; 14 November 1889 – 27 May 1964) was an Indian anti-colonial nationalist, secular humanist, social democrat— * * * * and author who was a central figure in India during the middle of the 20t ...

, shared a strong personal bond of friendship. Presidents Nkrumah,

Hilla Limann Hilla Limann, (12 December 1934 – 23 January 1998) was a Ghanaian diplomat and politician who served the President of Ghana from 24 September 1979 to 31 December 1981. He served as a diplomat in Lome, Togo and Geneva, Switzerland. Education ...

, John Rawlings and

John Kufuor John Kofi Agyekum Kufuor (born 8 December 1938) is a Ghanaian politician who served as the President of Ghana from 7 January 2001 to 7 January 2009. He was also Chairperson of the African Union from 2007 to 2008. Kufuor's career has been spe ...

have made state visits to India while Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao visited Ghana in 1995. India and Ghana are founding members of the

Non Aligned Movement The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) is a forum of 120 countries that are not formally aligned with or against any major power bloc. After the United Nations, it is the largest grouping of states worldwide. The movement originated in the aftermath o ...

, the Government of India's Team-9 initiative and are members of the Commonwealth.

Indians and Indian culture in Ghana

There are about ten thousand Ghanaian Indians and Persons of Indian Origin living in Ghana today with some of them having been there for over 70 years. Ghana is home to a growing indigenous Hindu population that today numbers 13,000 families.

Hinduism Hinduism () is an Indian religion or '' dharma'', a religious and universal order or way of life by which followers abide. As a religion, it is the world's third-largest, with over 1.2–1.35 billion followers, or 15–16% of the global p ...

first came to Ghana only in the late 1940s with the Sindhi traders who migrated here following India's Partition. It has been growing in Ghana and neighbouring Togo since the mid-1970s when an African Hindu monastery was established in Accra.

Economic ties

Trade

Trade between India and Ghana amounted to US$818 million in 2010-11 and is expected to be worth US$1 billion by 2013. Ghana imports automobiles and buses from India and companies like

Tata Motors Tata Motors Limited is an Indian multinational automotive manufacturing company, headquartered in Mumbai, India, which is part of the Tata Group. The company produces passenger cars, trucks, vans, coaches, buses. Formerly known as Tata Eng ...

and Ashok Leyland have a significant presence in the country. Ghanaian exports to India consist of

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile me ...

, cocoa and timber while Indian exports to Ghana comprise pharmaceuticals, agricultural machinery, electrical equipment, plastics, steel and

cement A cement is a binder, a chemical substance used for construction that sets, hardens, and adheres to other materials to bind them together. Cement is seldom used on its own, but rather to bind sand and gravel ( aggregate) together. Cement mi ...

Economic cooperation

The Government of India has extended $228 million in

lines of credit A line of credit is a Credit (finance), credit facility extended by a bank or other financial institution to a government, business or Personal finance, individual customer that enables the customer to draw on the facility when the customer nee ...

to Ghana which has been used for projects in sectors like agro-processing, fish processing, waste management, rural electrification and the expansion of Ghana's railways. India has also offered to set up an India-Africa Institute of Information Technology (IAIIT) and a Food Processing Business Incubation Centre in Ghana under the India-Africa Forum Summit.

Investments

India is among the largest foreign investors in Ghana's economy. At the end of 2011, Indian investments in Ghana amounted to $550 million covering some 548 projects. Indian investments are primarily in the agriculture and manufacturing sectors of Ghana while Ghanaian companies manufacture drugs in collaboration with Indian companies. The IT sector in Ghana too has a significant Indian presence in it. India and Ghana also have a Bilateral Investment Protection Agreement between them. India's Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilisers is in the process of setting up a fertiliser plant in Ghana at Nyankrom in the

Shama District Shama District is one of the fourteen districts in Western Region, Ghana. Originally it was formerly part of the then-larger Shama Ahanta East Metropolitan District in 1988, which was created from the former Sekondi Takoradi Metropolitan Authorit ...

of the

Western Region of Ghana The Western Region is located in south Ghana, spreads from the Ivory Coast (Comoé District) in the west to the Central region in the east, includes the capital and large twin city of Sekondi-Takoradi on the coast, coastal Axim, and a hilly inl ...

. The project entails an investment of US$1.3 billion and the plant would have an annual production capacity of 1.1 million tonnes, the bulk of which would be exported to India. There are also plans to develop a sugar processing plant entailing an investment of US$36 million.

Bank of Baroda Bank of Baroda (BOB or BoB) is an Indian public sector bank headquartered in Vadodara, Gujarat. It is the second largest public sector bank in India after State Bank of India, with 132 million customers, a total business of US$218 billion, ...

Bharti Airtel Bharti Airtel Limited, commonly known as (d/b/a) Airtel, is an Indian multinational telecommunications services company based in New Delhi. It operates in 18 countries across South Asia and Africa, as well as the Channel Islands. Currently, ...

and

Tech Mahindra Tech Mahindra is an Indian multinational information technology services and consulting company. Part of the Mahindra Group, the company is headquartered in Pune and has its registered office in Mumbai. Tech Mahindra is a 6.0 billion company ...

are amongst the major Indian companies in Ghana.

Technical co-operation

India extends scholarship for the training of Ghanaian personnel in India through its Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation Programme and the Special Commonwealth Assistance for Africa Programme(SCAAP). India has trained over 1,100 Ghanaian students and professionals since the commencement of the programme. India has also helped Ghana with expertise in IT and Communications (ICT) and helped develop the Tema Community Centre into a modern ICT facility. The Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT is another result of India's cooperation with Ghana in this field. The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing,

Pune Pune (; ; also known as Poona, ( the official name from 1818 until 1978) is one of the most important industrial and educational hubs of India, with an estimated population of 7.4 million As of 2021, Pune Metropolitan Region is the largest i ...

is to now provide

PARAM Param may refer to: * PARAM, a series of Indian supercomputers * Param (company), a video game developer * Param, Iran, a village in East Azerbaijan Province, Iran * Param, Mazandaran, a village in Mazandaran Province, Iran * Param, Chuuk, Microne ...

supercomputing technology and training to the centre from 2012. The Indian Government supported the

Electoral Commission of Ghana The Electoral Commission of Ghana(EC) is the official body in Ghana responsible for all public elections. Made up of seven members, its independence is guaranteed by the 1992 Ghana constitution. The current commission was established by the Elec ...

in conducting the Presidential and Parliamentary polls there in December 2012 by providing it with indelible ink and has also been helping Ghana develop an electronic system for revenue mobilisation. Ghana is also part of the Pan-African e-Network project initiated by India and Ghana's

Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) is a public University of Ghana that focuses on science and technology. The Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology is the public university established in the country, as well a ...

has commenced degree courses in collaboration with institutions of

higher education in India India has a publicly funded higher education system that is the third largest in the world, next to the United States and China. The main governing body at the tertiary level is the University Grants Commission, which enforces its standards, ...

. The new palace of the Ghanaian President, called

Flagstaff House Flagstaff House, built in 1846, is the oldest example of Western-style architecture remaining in Hong Kong.Antiquities and Monuments OfficeDeclared Monuments in Hong Kong: Flagstaff House It is located at 10 Cotton Tree Drive, Central – w ...

, has been built by India using a $60 million soft loan from the Government of India.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ghana-India relations Bilateral relations of India Africa–India relations