By Aparajita Gupta

India and Ethiopia established diplomatic relation in 1948. In the almost seven decades of close ties, the two countries have expanded their cooperation to several areas. The Northeast African country now wants India to share its knowledge and technology for development. Ambassador Gennet Zewide, who has been in India for eight years, spoke exclusively to India Africa Connect in a 25-minutes interview in Ethiopian Embassy established in 1948, one of the oldest chanceries in New Delhi's Diplomatic Enclave, and said she feels "completely at home in India".

Excerpts:

India and Ethiopia has long standing relationship. Which are the new fields of interest?

The Metal and Metallurgy Institute of Ethiopia is interested to tieup withCouncil of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) for knowledge and technology sharing. The team will be visiting the three institutes under the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research - National Metallurgical Laboratory, Central Mechanical Engineering Research Institute and Central Electronics Engineering Research Institute - within a month.

Indian teachers have played an important role in the education system of Ethiopia. Do you still need teachers from here?

In 1950-60 when we were expanding our eductaion system, India came to our rescue because we didnot have any teacher training colleges. Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru gave permission to have educational ties. So Indians came as our teachers and they taught us in primary schools.

Later when capacity grew we started training elementary and high school teachers. Especially in the 1980s when the military government took over most of the Indians came back, but today we are expanding our higher education and we have close to 500 Indian professors in our colleges and universities.

Our tryst with education has further diversified. Not only we take teachers from here, but also we bring our Ethiopian students to India. Ethiopian government gives scholarship consciously, trains its would be professors, instructors of the universities in India. So we have close 500 Ethiopian instructors studying in India.

Which are the various institutes that Ethiopia has tied up with for knowledge sharing and technology sharing?

We are transforming ourselves from an agrarian one to an industrial economy. We need more people with domain knowledge. Ethiopia has tied up with institutes like South Indian Textile Research Association (SITRA), National Institute of Fashion Technology and Footwear Design and Development Institute in Noida. These institutes give technical assistance and train people. They travel to give short term training and we also bring students. We have a unique tieup with IIT Delhi, which gives a masters programme virtually in engineering areas.

What is the volume of bilateral trade now and how much will it grow in near future?

The volume of bilateral trade has gone up to $600 million now and we are working to make it $1 billion by 2015. From India we take all manufactured goods like, electronics, metal goods and we export pulses, oil seeds, precious and semi precious stones.

India is Ethiopia's second largest source of Foreign Direct Investments with investments amounting to $5 billion. Indian investments in Ethiopia are expected to be worth $10 billion by 2015 with India approving investments worth $4.78 billion in 2011.

Which are the new business sectors of interest to Ethiopia?

Still we are looking for healthcare industry. There are no big Indian hospitals in Ethiopia. We are also looking for hotel industry to invest in Ethiopia.

India is all set to go to polls very soon. What are your expectations of the African community from the next government?

We have a very good relationship with India and we want the upcoming government to continue with that. We want the tieups and the programmes to continue. We want foreign direct investment, technical assistance, trade related investment, technology transfer everything to continue.

How long have you been to India and how was your experience with the country so far?

I am here in India for the last eight years. It is a wonderful place. Now I feel completely at home. There are cultural similarities of both the places and cuisine is also very similar.