Brazil
With the aim of enhancing co-operation between India, Brazil and South Africa in the field of Small Industries, the Third Tri-nation Summit for Small Business Development began in Faridabad. Inaugurating the Summit the Union Minister of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Shri Mahabir Prasad raised hope that the summit will help the small industries of IBSA countries to meet global challenges.
Last month, captains of industry from India, Brazil and SA (Ibsa) descended on the Indian capital for the third summit of the Ibsa Trilateral Business Council.
The figures are undoubtedly impressive. A total combined gross domestic product (GDP) in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms of more than $5,28- trillion, or 8% of the total global PPP GDP of over $65,6-trillion. A total population of more than 1,39-billion people, or just under 21% of the global population of more than 6,7-billion. These numbers show the combined weight of India, Brazil and South Africa (Ibsa), the three member countries of the Ibsa Dialogue Forum.
Can India, Brazil and South Africa (IBSA) together make more money than they can spend? This was the fervent of the South African High Commissioner Francis Moloi at the third IBSA Business Summit 2008 that recently took place in New Delhi. Considering the three countries lie in different continents, connectivity is a major issue. In fact, integrating the three economies may be the ideal way to combat the global downturn.
Developing countries have talked of the philosophy of South-south cooperation for development for a very long time. A number of initiatives was launched during the 1960s and 1970s. However, progress was modest because of lack of resources and institutional weaknesses in developing countries. With the emergence of countries like Brazil, India and South Africa in this millennium with considerable capabilities and collective development experiences that South-south cooperation has begun to be seen as a viable strategy.
Reflecting their growing economic ties, India, Brazil and South Africa (IBSA) have set an ambitious trade target of $15 billion between the three countries by 2010.
When leaders of India, Brazil and South Africa meet next week for their annual trilateral summit, the one issue on top of their minds
will be the unfolding financial crisis.
Business leaders from India, Brazil and South Africa are meeting here on October 13 to deliberate on trilateral trade co-operation and will also discuss issues related to tourism and student exchange programme.
India, Brazil and South Africa (IBSA) is working towards sorting out procedural and infrastructural bottlenecks to increase mutual operation in key areas of energy, tourism and mining, industry body CII said on Monday.
The "strategic alliance" that is the India-Brazil-South Africa trilateral axis is now more than simply a dialogue but a "privileged relationship" favouring a world where democracy will prevail not only in its political manifestation but also on social and cultural levels
Thailand and Brazil would swap the role of gateway to Asean and MERCOSUR trade block in the Latin America to boost trade of both sides, Foreign Minister Noppadon Pattama said Tuesday.
Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg and his Brazilian counterpart Celso Amorim signed a Czech-Brazilian agreement on cooperation in the fields of economy and industry in Prague, during Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s visit to the Czech Republic.
Long-stalled talks on a trade agreement between the European Union and South America’s Mercosur bloc should make progress in the second half of this year, Brazil’s foreign minister said on Thursday.
Mercosur with Venezuela included has “the potential of becoming a trade block of the whole of South America” said Brazilian Foreign Affairs minister Ceslo Amorim who also insisted that keeping out of the Washington inspired Free Trade Area of the Americas, FTAA, “has been positive”.
So concerned is Brazil about the Caribbean EPA that it sent, on February 5, a communication to the World Trade Organisation requesting a debate. Its concern is that the arrangement agreed with the European Commission may cause nations like India, China and others to cease to negotiate with nations like the Caribbean.
When Ministers of Caricom’s Council for Finance and Planning (COFAP) meet in The Bahamas tomorrow, they are expected to consider the implications for this region of reservations expressed by Brazil at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) on provisions of the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) being negotiated with the European Commission (EC).
Major US exporters urged the Bush administration to begin negotiations with the "BRIC" nations — Brazil, Russia, India and China — on bilateral investment treaties, which they said were critical to US service company efforts to tap those large markets.
The Commission of the Constitution and Justice (CCJ) of the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies approved the entrance of Venezuela to the Common Market of the South (MERCOSUR).
The Brazilian Lower House Constitution and Justice Committee passed on Wednesday a motion for the long awaited incorporation of Venezuela to the South American trade block, Mercosur. However Venezuelan membership still faces a full debate in the House and must convince the Brazilian Senate.
In the United States, experts debate whether biofuel growth in the tropics will cut into profits for Midwest producers. Special free-trade agreements with those countries can make it less expensive to ship ethanol from there to the US coasts.
