EVENT INFORMATION
India Africa trade and commerce goes back to a thousand years when Indian merchants using strong and predictable monsoon winds, regularly sailed to the east coast of Africa in search of mangrove poles, elephant tusks, and gold and precious stones to sell them in the bazaars of Calicut and Surat.
During colonial times, indentured labour was brought in from India to work on the railways as well as on sugar and other plantations in Kenya, Mauritius, Madagascar and Southern Africa.
In time, Indian diaspora, with deep family roots, became a key driver of export of African commodities such as tea, coffee and cotton and the import of manufactured goods and grains such as rice, pulses and textiles.