India, Africa, Defence: India To Strengthen Strategic Ties With Gabon

India will provide expertise to the small defence forces of the Central African Republic of Gabon in disaster management, training and healthcare.

This was agreed during talks between the visiting Senior Minister for National Defence of Gabon, Mr. Ali Bongo Ondimba and the Defence Minister Shri AK Antony in New Delhi last night. Shri Sanjeeva Kumar, Joint Secretary in the Defence Ministry, later gave a presentation on the potential for cooperation during the delegation level talks.

Ties between the two countries have been expanding since the visit of a high-level Ministerial delegation led by the Gabonese President Mr. El Hadj Omar Bongo Ondimba to India in May last year. India offered a $14.5 million Line of Credit to Gabon for a housing project during the visit of Gabonese Deputy Minister of Housing Development in July, this year. However, there have been no high-level visits to Gabon from the Indian side.

Gabon, which is slightly bigger than Uttar Pradesh in size, has a very small military of about 10,000 personnel, divided into army, navy, air force and national police. Besides, France, who ruled Gabon for 75 years till 1960, maintain a battalion of 750 marines in the African nation located on the Atlantic Coast. Gabon, whose oil sector accounts for nearly half its GDP, quit the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in 1995.