Brazil
Certain analysts were critical of the summit’s achievements, saying it failed to make real headway with matters central to trade between the three regional powers — such as tariffs.
The declaration issued after the Tshwane India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) Summit on 17 October 2007.
India, Brazil and South Africa cemented their trilateral cooperation by signing seven agreements here Wednesday and resolved to push for a free trade area, with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh calling for considerably enhancing trade among the three.
IBSA was conceived in 2003 to counterbalance the powerful Group of Eight alliance of industrialised countries and to promote South-South cooperation. But a reality check reveals that all three IBSA members still do by far most of their business with industrialised countries.
After the failure of talks on the Free Trade Area of the Americas and slow progress in advancing the Doha round agenda of the World Trade Organization, executives from Brazil and the US have decided to take the matter of improving trade relations between their countries into their own hands.
Bilateral trade agreement with Asean and European Union are passe. The stage is set for the first trans-continental treaty with India, South Africa and Mercosur — comprising Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay — launching negotiations on a preferential trade agreement later this week.India will also start technical negotiations on Saturday for a PTA with the Southern African Customs Union, which consists of South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Lesotho and Swaziland.
Political and economic alliances with a view to strengthening Latin American integration are subtly shifting with a growing distance between Chávez and Lula
Brazil wants a "goodwill gesture" from Venezuela before its Congress votes it into the Mercosur trade bloc, but President Hugo Chavez’s government indicated Thursday it won’t be extending an olive branch any time soon.
India and Brazil, on Monday, floated a forum of Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) to facilitate both countries achieving a bi-lateral trade of $10 billion by 2010 with the visiting Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva asserting that the new world economic order cannot be negotiated without taking on board two of the most important developing nations.
Union minister of commerce and industry Kamal Nath said on Monday that Brazil and India have set a target of bilateral trade of $ 10 billion by 2010.
The India-Brazil strategic partnership formalised in September last year during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s tour of the South American country will be reinforced this week with specific inputs on trade and technology, according to official sources.
The meaning of my visit to India - the second one since my election as the President of Brazil - is to reiterate our readiness to forge a strategic alliance between our countries as I announced during my inaugural address in 2003. The visit of Prime-Minister Manmohan Singh to Brasilia in 2006 has greatly contributed to reinforce this partnership.
Latinamerica has never been so divided, Mercosur is but an illusion of integration and Brazil has lost its leadership and convergence capacity according to former Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso who ruled from 1995 to 2000.
The European Commission proposes to address trade and investment issues of specific bilateral relevance between the EU and Brazil that complement EU-Mercosur FTA discussions.
One of the major outcomes of the visit of the President of the Federative Republic of Brazil Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s visit a couple of years ago (2004) was the signing of a market access treaty that established tariff preferences between India and the countries of Mercosur (Southern Common Market), made up of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. Brazil’s Mercosur partners sent representatives as part of Lula’s retinue.
Brazil today said it would ratify the Mercosur preferential trade agreement (PTA) with India by June this year. However only Brazil would ratify, not the other members of Mercosur.
A free trade agreement (FTA) is expected to be concluded soon between India and the MERCOSUR group of South American countries, visiting Brazilian foreign minister, Mr Celso Amorim, today indicated. “It is partly our fault that the bilateral trade between India and Brazil is still very small around $3 billion,” Mr Amorim said at an interactive session organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).
Presidents from Uruguay and Brazil, meeting in Colonia Monday, seem to have smoothed strained economic and political ties with promises of stronger bilateral relations and a new boost to the battered Mercosur block, although Argentina, just fifty kilometers away was not present at the summit.
The Brazilian Foreign Relations Minister, Celso Amorin, argued that Mercosur would prefer to negotiate bilaterally with the US than to try to save the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas.
The two-day visit of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, is being projected as a decisive step in the consolidation of relations between three important countries of the South - India, Brazil and South Africa.
