Friends from the media, as you heard from my sister and counterpart Minister Stergomena Tax, we have had a very productive tenth round of the Joint Commission and this gave us an opportunity to do stock taking of our relationship, to discuss what are the new areas that we need to move forward, also, to agree on how to deepen our cooperation in the areas that we have been working on for many years. Among the domains that we looked at was our economic cooperation, how to increase trade and investment. We discussed how to promote stronger collaboration in ICT and technology. We spoke about expanding training and exchanges between us and we looked at areas like health and agriculture and defense and education as new domains to go forward.
Between India and Tanzania, we have a very strong, very time tested relationship which is based on a solidarity and a camaraderie which comes from a shared struggle for independence during the colonial times. And from the very beginning of our independence, we've always had very good understanding. Today that is reflected in a very robust economic engagement. We have a trade of almost 6.5 billion dollars annually. We have a significant Indian investment in this country. Tanzania is among our key trade partners, economic partners in Africa and we have a very substantial development partnership. We are particularly proud of our water partnership, which involves soft loans of almost a billion dollars, which when the projects are completed would bring safe drinking water to 8,000,000 Tanzanians. I think it will cover 28 towns of this country and for us its a great privilege to be associated with such a major transformational development initiative.
During this visit, we agreed on a new flagship project that would underline our deep friendship. And this is the establishment of a campus of the Indian Institute of Technology. This is the globally renowned technology institution of India. For the first time ever, the IIT is going abroad and we are very, very pleased that this should take place in Zanzibar, because in many ways Zanzibar is a meeting point of African and Indian cultures and I certainly regard the agreement which was concluded to establish this campus as one of the high points of my visit.
I also had the opportunity to meet many alumni of Indian training institutions and courses and I was very pleased today that when I had the opportunity to call on Her Excellency, the President, she also recalled the time that she spent at one of our institutions earlier on in her career. During my stay, I had as Minister Tax mentioned, the chance to visit water projects both in in Kiduthani, in Zanzibar and Kibamba here and to go to the Dar es Salaam Institute of Technology with which we have had a long association where there is a supercomputer from India which is operating.
I could meet the Indian community. This community of 55,000 Indians and people of Indian origin plays a very important role as a bridge between our countries. I had a chance to address a business event. There is a business delegation from India at this very time. And as I said, I was very glad for the guidance that we got from Her Excellency the President about how to further develop our relationship.
I also would like to recognize the meeting which I had with the President of Zanzibar. He was very, very supportive of what we are seeking to do in terms of the early establishment of the campus there.
So overall, it has been a very productive visit. I thank you for it. I thank all the officials who worked very hard to prepare for it. And I would like to end by emphasizing that Prime Minister Modi believes that the deep solidarity between India and Africa, it must be expressed in very practical terms, in a way in which we share experiences, we share capabilities, we contribute to each others understanding of the world. And today, this Joint Commission meeting and the roadmap that we have put forward is a way of doing it because Prime Minister Modi deeply believes that partnerships are made by recognizing the priorities of partners and whether it is water or whether it is technology, whether it is defense, whether it is trade, these are very much the priorities that we hear from our Tanzanian partners and we are very privileged to be part of your developmental journey.
Once again. It's been an immense pleasure to be here and I would like to thank my sister, Minister Stergomena Tax for her hospitality, for her warm welcome and for what has been really a very productive visit. Thank you very much.
Dar es Salaam
July 08, 2023