India, SA, Brazil meet for talks

2007-10-17 19:07

Pretoria - The leaders of emerging powerhouses India, South Africa and Brazil met for a Wednesday summit focused on building up trade and finding a common voice on the world stage for the developing world.

South African President Thabo Mbeki was the host of the second annual IBSA (India, Brazil, South Africa) summit in Pretoria which will see him hold talks and sign a series of joint agreements with his Brazilian counterpart Luis Inacio Lula Da Silva and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

"We continue of course to face the same common challenges," Mbeki said in brief opening remarks.

"We will look at additional proposals that are made to further expand this co-operation and I am quite certain that the summit will further help expedite the process," the South African leader added.

Want real influence

Lula said that while the countries were invited as participants in talks with the group of eight (G8) industrialised nations, they needed to ensure that their views carried more influence.

"This mechanism has to be perfected in a way that our voice has a real influence in major world issues," he said.

"It is not of much value for us to be invited to the dessert course at the banquet of the powerful."

Both Lula and Singh arrived in South Africa on Tuesday night after business leaders from the three countries had held a joint seminar in which they urged their respective governments to do more to ease trade barriers.

The three governments' foreign ministers held preparatory talks early on Wednesday before the three heads of state gathered at Union Building in the capital Pretoria.

A statement from the South African government said that the meeting was expected to conclude with a number of trilateral agreements focusing on shipping, information technology and energy.

"India-Brazil-SA have very vibrant democracies, common views on major global issues and are substantial players in their respective sub-regional economies," it said.

All three governments have ambitions to become permanent veto-wielding members of the United Nations Security Council and analysts see their alliance as an opportunity to push their common diplomatic agenda.

The three countries have a combined population of more than 1.3 billion people and levels of trade are steadily increasing.

International trade between Brazil and South Africa stood at R16bn last year with the balance of trade being in favour of the South American country. Bilateral trade between South Africa and India is also worth around R16bn.

- AFP