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President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah during official talks with Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, Windhoek, 9 July 2025
Namaste. and a very warm welcome to our country.
It gives me great pleasure to extend a heartfelt welcome to you, prime minister, and your esteemed delegation to the Republic of Namibia.
We are deeply honoured that you found time and accepted our invitation to visit Namibia. This historic state visit is particularly significant as it marks 35 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations between our two countries and yet another manifestation of the unwavering bonds of friendship and solidarity.
Our historic and longstanding ties are rooted in India’s principled support for our struggle for liberation, independence and democracy, which we will continue to cherish. Today we are bound by our collective desire and commitment to the democratic principles of freedom, peace, stability and the rule of law. Giving rise to our ultimate vision and goal of economic development and prosperity for our citizens.
This state visit provides us indeed the opportunity to give impetus to that vision and goal by strengthening trade, investment, technical cooperation, political and people-to-people relations between our two countries.
The frequent mutual high-level visits, engagements and structured bilateral mechanisms, such as our joint commission of cooperation and joint trade committee, have enabled us to deepen our relations across many fields. Not long ago we were pleased to receive here in Namibia Dr Jainhankar, India’s minister of external affairs, for a productive joint ministerial session, and together we inaugurated the Centre of Excellence – an enduring symbol of our shared investment in digital transformation.
Moreover, we have together also made important strides to develop and diversify our relations, particularly in the areas of information and communication technology (ICT), human resources development, agriculture, pharmaceuticals and defence.
Our excellent relations and cooperation continue to thrive and deepen through the expansions of frameworks of cooperation across a wide range of priority sectors. Notable are the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation Programme and the Indian Council for Cultural Relations.
Structured cooperation in defence and public administration is also expanding, particularly through the memorandum of understanding between the Namibian Institute of Public Administration and Management and the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration.
We are further encouraged by our shared commitment to biodiversity conservation. The successful translocation of cheetahs from Namibia to India is not just an act of ecological restoration – it is a global symbol of innovative South-South cooperation and sustainable partnership.
In the health sector, we welcome India’s proposal under the ‘Pharmacy of the World’ initiative to establish a pharmaceutical manufacturing facility in Namibia. This initiative would significantly enhance regional health security and aligns with Namibia’s goal of strengthening domestic production capacities in health. We are eager to finalise the outstanding memoranda of understanding in health cooperation.
We are equally encouraged by India’s proposal to establish a Namibia-India Entrepreneurship Development Centre. We believe this centre will serve as a motivation for innovation, skills development, and entrepreneurship, especially for youth and women.
India remains one of Namibia’s largest trading partners, as such, trade and investment cooperation remains central to our bilateral agenda. I believe that both our countries have the capacity to expand trade and investment. We see immense potential for scaling up cooperation in the following strategic areas:
- green hydrogen and clean energy,
- mining and value addition,
- oil and gas,
- infrastructure development,
- agriculture and food security, and
- tourism development.
We must therefore do more to develop and capitalise on the opportunities available to us, to fully realise our trade and investment potential. The Namibia-India joint trade committee constitutes valuable mechanisms to this end and we are looking forward to the holding of the fourth session later this month.
This is all in line with our broader national agenda to attract meaningful foreign direct investment, further diversify our export basket, and improve terms of trade with the view of accelerating economic development, to offer much needed employment, especially for our youth, reduce poverty and to provide a dignified life for all our people.
In the area of international cooperation, present global challenges have exposed the limitations and fragilities of multilateral institutions that lack democratic principles and equitable representation to respond to current global challenges. The need for an effective multilateral system has never been more important to address the nature and scale of today’s global challenges of conflict, instability in the global trading system, climate change, inequalities, poverty, international terrorism, and technological disruptions, to mention just a few.
We should collectively stand firm in our call for multilateralism to remain at the centre of global affairs. It is also important for our two countries to maintain regular consultations on vital issues such as the need for the reform of the United Nations (UN) Security Council and other multilateral institutions.
We share the same conviction of a fairer, equitable, representative and democratic UN Security Council reflective of the current geopolitical realities and therefore, should unite in order to ensure that the desired reforms take place as soon as possible. The global South must have permanent representation and a voice on the United Nations Security Council, so that it reflects global demographics and realities.
We welcome the adoption of the pact for the future, the global digital compact, and the declaration on future generations, of which the adoption Namibia had the privilege to facilitate together with Germany as co-facilitators. I am very confident that the pact will go a long way in reinvigorating multilateralism, accelerate the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, and bring the world one step closer towards ending poverty, promoting shared economic prosperity, social development and environmental protection for all countries.
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Terrorism continues to pose a major threat to international peace and security and undermines economic and social development. Namibia expresses her strong condemnation of the scourge of terrorism in all its forms and manifestations.
We equally wish to reaffirm our unwavering support for the right to self-determination of peoples living under foreign occupation and colonial domination, as enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, and international law. The realisation of this right is essential for the promotion of peace, justice and human dignity. In this context, we call for renewed international efforts to support people seeking to exercise their legitimate right to self-determination.
Lastly, I hope to discuss and exchange views on how best we can work together to strengthen the good relations and cooperation in diverse fields; and explore new ways to collaborate, while leveraging on the longstanding and historic relations, growing economic opportunities offered by our two countries, the vigour of our people-to-people ties, and our unyielding commitment to the development and prosperity of our two nations.
I now invite the prime minister to deliver his remarks.
I thank you.
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