India-Brazil partnership is one between equals: President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva

New Delhi: The India-Brazil partnership is one between equals and the dialogue is at the same level, Brazil President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said on Sunday, as he concluded a five-day trip here that gave a major boost to bilateral economic and digital cooperation.

"What is really more important is that when we're talking about a negotiation with a country like India, we are not dealing with a coloniser. Because when you deal with rich countries, those countries that are accustomed to dealing with many other countries, it's a sort of authoritarianism in the negotiations, not taking into account the happiness of each nation. With India, it's different. It's not the strongest force that prevails. We are two countries that are in need or in want. No one is above the other country," Lula said in an indirect dig at the Western negotiating tactic.

"The truth is that there's a lot of similarity between Brazil and India in the attitude and in the needs. So, when you sit down around a table with the business sector in India, when you have conversations with Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi or former prime minister (Manmohan) Singh, there's something very similar to our needs," Lula said, addressing Indian and Brazilian media at the end of his state visit to India. "So, it's much easier for us to work and to establish an action plan, and to establish targets or goals and to build partnerships between Brazilian entrepreneurs and Indians and invite them to make investments in Brazil," he added.


Lula urged US President Donald Trump to treat all countries equally amid the tariff row. "I want to tell the US President that we don't want a new Cold War. We don't want interference in any other country; we want all countries to be treated equally."

Lula is expected to travel to Washington next month for a meeting with Trump. "The world doesn't need more turbulence, it needs peace," he said.

Last year, the US reduced tariffs on Brazil in backdrop of rising prices of essentials like cocoa and beef that it imports from the Latin American country.

The veteran leader praised the personal touch by PM Modi to make his trip memorable. "I was surprised yesterday, at the state dinner and at lunch, too. I don't know if the Brazilian journalists remember this, but when Prime Minister Modi came to visit Brazil last year, we did research on the song that he preferred most. We went to Sao Paulo to try to find a singer who could sing the song that he enjoyed the most. So, we did a surprise for him at the Palacio da Alvorada in Brazil, and it was visible that he was touched by the song that we chose to play for him," he said. "Yesterday I was surprised because during lunch we started to hear a song. I saw that that song had something to do with us...Then they played other songs from the Brazilian composers. They played Asa Branca."

The Brazilian President pitched for boosting trade ties also. "When I came here for the very first time, the trade between Brazil and India was only $2.4 billion. Now it has reached $10.5 billion. Prime Minister Modi established for me that we have a target to reach $20 billion by the year 2030...We'll reach $30 billion of trade because the economic potential of the two countries is very strong," Lula said. "If we take into account the healthcare industry, we're getting out of this country with seven MOUs or agreements that were signed, which is something that is very important..."

This trip to India has a characteristic that is very special, Lula said. "It was in India in 2005 that, for the very first time, I perceived the importance of having international hard currency reserves. I came here, my first trip, and India had accrued $100 billion in international hard currency reserves. I came back to Brazil convinced that we needed to build up our international reserves, and we had to have an extra buffer. We managed to do that for the very first time," he said. "We left that position of debtors of the IMF to the creditors of the IMF. We accrued reserves of international hard currencies of $360 billion. That was the third or fourth largest international reserve in the world in those days."