India Trade Pact With Mercosur On Cards

Sep 01,2006 00:00 by Newsdesk

An agreement aimed at boosting trade between India, Brazil and South Africa is expected to be inked during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Brazil this month.

The announcement was made at a meet on the economic cooperation between India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and think tank Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS) here Friday evening.

The IBSA, formed after the Cancun talks of the World Trade Organisation in 2003, aims to foster closer political, economic and cultural ties among the three countries.

A free trade agreement among the three may not be possible because Brazil is a signatory to Latin American free trade agreement (FTA) Mercosur and South Africa to the SACU.

The customs union known as Mercosur includes Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Venezuela, apart from Brazil. SACU, the oldest customs union in the world, also includes Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland.

Manmohan Singh is scheduled to visit Brazil Sep 13-14, followed by a visit to Cuba to attend the 14th Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit.