President Pranab Mukherjee will embark on a four-day visit to Ghana and Ivory Coast beginning June 12 with an aim to boost India's ties with the two African nations in areas of trade and investment.
Mukherjee will first head to Ghana where he will have talks with President John Dramani Mahama on a range of bilateral as well as global issues.
"A number of agreements are under process for signing including setting up of a joint commission between India and Ghana and renewal of Cultural Exchange Programme," the Ministry of External Affairs said in a release.
Mukherjee will be received on his arrival by Kwesi Bekoe Amissah-Arthur, Vice-President of Ghana, it said.
His engagements in Ghana include an address to the Joint Business Forum at the University of Ghana and interaction with the Indian community.
Mukherjee will unveil a statue of Mahatma Gandhi gifted by the Indian Council of Cultural Relations and also plant a sapling at Ghanaian Presidential Complex, an iconic building built with Indian assistance through a Line of credit.
He will also visit the India-Ghana Kofi Annan Centre of ICT Excellence in Accra, set up with Indian assistance of USD 2.86 million.
Bilateral trade and investments between Ghana and India have been steadily growing. India's cumulative investments in Ghana till date have exceeded USD 1 billion and bilateral trade crossed US USD 3 billion mark in 2015-16.
President Mahama will also host a State Banquet in honour of Mukherjee.
Mukherjee will depart for Ivory Coast on June 14.
This will be the first high-level visit from India since the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries.
India and Ivory Coast enjoy warm and friendly relations sharing common values of democracy, development and secularism.
Bilateral trade between India and Ivory Coast grew from USD 344.99 million in 2010-11 to US USD 841.85 million in 2014-15.
India has extended lines of credit amounting to USD 156.3 million to the Government of Ivory Coast for developmental projects in diverse fields such as public transportation, rural electrification, rice self-sufficiency, cashew nut processing, vegetable oil processing, coconut fibre processing, fisheries processing etc.
Mukherjee would be received by Alassane Ouattara, President of Republic of Ivory Coast. Both the Presidents will have one-to-one meeting followed by delegation level talks on a wide range of issues of mutual interest.
Mukherjee would be conferred the National Order of the Republic of Ivory Coast, the highest honour of the country.
The President would address a Joint Business Forum and also interact with the Indian Community.
The visit comes days after incidents of attacks on African nationals here that had triggered outrage among the community.
