Lula coming again in June to energise ties
Ties with Brazil are set to be energised with the visit of president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, beginning June 4, even as the two nations formulate strategy to push the Doha round of talks forward.
By Nirmala Ganapathy, TNN |
NEW DELHI: Ties with Brazil are set to be energised with the visit of president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, beginning June 4, even as the two nations formulate strategy to push the Doha round of talks forward. This would be president Lula’s second visit to India and it comes after prime minister Manmohan Singh’s trip to Brazil last September. Mr Lula had come to India in January 2004 as chief guest at the Republic Day ceremony.
Brazilian foreign minister Celso Amorim is here already on a preparatory visit and for the third meeting of the Indo-Brazil joint commission and trade talks. Even as India and Brazil collaborate in various multi lateral forums, there is a bid to give equal weightage to bilateral ties. India and Brazil have recently worked closely on multilateral fora like G-4 initiative, WTO talks and the IBSA initiative. But as political and economic ties grow, both see are pushing bilateral ties.
It is also felt that Brazil and India have complementarities, especially in science and technology and agriculture. Brazil’s bid to commodotise ethanol like crude oil is also being watched with interest by India, which is looking at alternative sources of energy. India is anyway part of the International Biofuels Forum, which will discuss ways to promote use of biofuels, along with Brazil, China South Africa, the US and European Commission.
Foreign secretary Shiv Shankar Menon in a talk on challenges to foreign policy had also spoke about ``nurturing a web of cooperative energy security networks in Asia and new suppliers in Latin America” and said that one of the goals of economic diplomacy us to significantly upgrade economic ties with Latin America. Brazil is the largest trading partner of India in Latin America.
In 2006, India’s exports were $1.47 billion and imports $937 million. Indian companies have also started investment and joint ventures in Brazil in IT, pharmaceuticals, energy, agri-business and mining sectors, while Brazilian companies are also pursuing opportunities in India in areas such as petroleum, mining, automobiles and aviation.
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Meanwhile, the Brazilian foreign minister, ahead of the trade talks, met with commerce minister Kamal Nath on Wednesday. He will participate in the G-4 meeting and G-6 meetings to kickstart the Doha round of talks. He is will call on prime minister Manmohan Singh and external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee, who is recuperating from his accident, before co-chairing the meeting of the joint commission with minister of state for external affairs Anand Sharma.The joint commission will review cooperation in various areas including agriculture, science and technology, defence, energy, health, tourism, culture and infrastructure.
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