The Hindu Business Line : CII, FICCI told to `prepare teams' for IBSA Business Summit

THE Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) have been asked to "prepare delegations" for the India, Brazil, South Africa (IBSA) Business Summit that is to be held in South Africa in the second week of March 2005.

The decision to hold the business summit alongside the IBSA Ministerial meet was taken at an IBSA review meeting in New Delhi on November 30, highly placed sources in the Government told Business Line on Friday.

The Business Summit would add a private sector dimension to what has so far been a Government-to-Government affair.

The review meeting was a follow-up of the IBSA Ministerial meet held in Delhi in March, which evolved a New Delhi Plan of Action for co-operation among India, Brazil and South Africa.

The participants of the meeting formally decided that the trilateral trade among the countries, which stood at $4.5 billion in 2003, should be raised to at least $10 billion by 2007, sources said.

In 2003, India's exports to Brazil were about $486 million and South Africa, about $475 million. India also imported goods worth $540 million (mainly petroleum) from Brazil and $2 billion (mainly gold) from South Africa.

The Indian Government wishes to increase its exports to each of these countries to $1 billion in three years. The country's exports to Brazil and South Africa are far lower than that of China's to them. In 2003, China exported goods worth $2 billion to Brazil and $2.8 billion to South Africa, sources pointed out.

At the review meeting, a suggestion was made for working on a `framework agreement for co-operation in trade and investment', but the meeting decided that it could be taken up at a later stage. Such a framework agreement could lead to a free trade agreement between the countries.

The idea behind IBSA goes much beyond trade, getting into areas of co-operation in science and technology and even defence. Those close to the subject observe that there are complementarities in defence. For example, Brazil is strong in aircraft technology, India in small arms and light helicopters and South Africa in a range of defence equipment.

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