Foreign ministers of India, Brazil and South Africa enunciated their stance on trade, global financial crisis and the reform of the United Nations as well as their joint efforts to develop trilateral trade and reach a trade accord reached between the Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR), the five-member South African Customs Union (SACU) and the Indian government in an announcement they issued at the end of their sixth ministerial talks held in Brasilia, Brazil.
With a rapid growth of economic and trade ties, Brazil, India and South Africa (BISA) announced their plans on Tuesday, September 1, to boost trilateral trade ties via negotiations aimed at reaching agreement to increase their trade flow to 25 billion US dollars by 2015; BISA would enhance their high-performance communicating and broadband communication networks for air and sea services, and spur their trade promotion and exchange of personnel.
In the meantime, they will further promote their trilateral trade and spur to sign the agreement between the “MERCOSUR”, “SACU” and India at an early date.
The IBSA Fund, jointly set up by Brazil, India and South Africa, has already played an active role in assisting Haiti, the Guinea-Bissau and Palestine in the sphere of reconstruction, and will continue to promote development plans and carry out international aid within its own framework.
On the UN reform, the foreign ministers of the three countries held that multilateral agencies, including WTO and other UN agencies, should increase the representation and voice of developing nations, and that it is imperative for the United Nations to renovate its mechanism, enhance democracy and bring into a fuller play the role of developing nations and increase the number of their permanent and nonpermanent seats in the UN Security Council. They also stress that members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) should work to break the deadlock in the Doha round trade negotiations, so as to reach an agreement as soon as possible.
IBSA (India-Brazil-South Africa) Dialogue Forum, created back in 2003 at the sponsorship of Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, has been a vehicle of exchanges and cooperation between the three nations.
This Dialogue Forum laid the groundwork for the trilateral summit of Brazil, India and South Africa to be held in Brazil on October 8. Currently, the three countries have a combined gross domestic product of 3.2 trillion US dollars with a total population of 1.4 billion.
In addition to trilateral trade, the three sides underlined the importance of broader cooperation in the international arena. South African Foreign Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane expressed the view that Brazil, India and South Africa, as members of the WTO group of 20, mainly discussed recommendations for governance reform of the Bretton Woods institutions. Besides, said the South African minister, climate change was also one of the main topics for deliberations, and they would proceed to coordinate their stance for the forthcoming Copenhagen trilateral summit. Meanwhile, noted Minister Nkoana-Mashabane, the meeting would also confer on the issue of coordination between IBSA and the BRIC bloc, namely, Brazil, Russia, India and China.
Indian External Affair Minister S.M. Krishna vigorously defended financial monitoring agreement during the dialogue forum and called for "better surveillance" to tackle global financial crisis. Krishna also said that the developing world should be given a greater say in the global financial system.
The relationships between India, Brazil and South Africa have been reinforced by the global financial crisis, and their current in-depth cooperation could change or put an end to the ongoing global recession.
In order to inject new vitality into world economy, Indian external affairs minister acknowledged, the developing nations should have a bigger role to play in the global financial setup, and "It is our hope that the South-South cooperation should be enhanced," he said, citing the cooperation between India, Brazil and South Africa as a fine example for South-South cooperation.
India ranks among the first worldwide in term of its scientific and technological forces, and South Africa is the largest economy in Africa, whereas Brazil is the biggest Latin American nation, which is abundant with natural resources.
The IBSA Dialogue Forum has been the outcome of South-South cooperation since the 1970s, according to economic experts and political analysts, and both the substantial status and the future potential of the three countries should not be overlooked and their increased dialogue would surely impact the development of the world politics and economy.
By People's Daily Online
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