POLITICS:
India, Brazil, South Africa Ready to Lead Global South

Ranjit Devraj


NEW DELHI, (IPS) - India, Brazil and South Africa, representing three major democracies in three different corners of the globe, emerged confident in leading South-South cooperation at a two-day meeting of their foreign ministers that ended here Friday.

The new confidence was enshrined in a plan of action adopted by these countries and in the ‘New Delhi Agenda for Cooperation' that will see them working together, Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said at a joint press conference after the first ministerial meeting of the India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) Forum.

‘'This is a group to spread goodwill and the message of peace - we are not against anyone,'' Amorim added, seeking to allay apprehensions that the rest of the world may have of the coming together of three economies physically separated by vast expanses of deep ocean.

‘'If we have conquered distance (to get together), we will annihilate the distance of both mind and geographyà. the Cape of Good Hope will now be the Cape of New Hope,'' said Yashwant Sinha, India's minister for external affairs.

The aviation ministries of the three countries have already begun talks. New shipping links, important to the maritime countries, are also being worked out.

Sinha said that South-South cooperation has been delayed for too long and that the three former colonies could kickstart the process by sharing ''opportunities, experiences, achievements and complementarities''.

IBSA also had poverty to share and proposed to tackle this with a separate fund to be managed by the United Nations Development Fund (UNDP). Brazil and India put down 100,000 U.S. dollars each on the table for the fund and South Africa, 50,000 dollars.

‘'We have resolved to work together in all areas of human endeavour and most importantly in fighting hunger and poverty not only in our countries but in the developing world as a whole,'' Sinha said.

A Trilateral Business Council will create the framework under which business people from the three countries could get together and create synergies with the existing Preferential Trade Agreements that Brazil has initiated with India.

Brazil, as a leader of the MERCOSUR group that includes Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, could play a key role as a link between India and Latin America, with which India already has signed a framework agreement that is expected to lead to a preferential and later a free trade agreement.

Trade between India and MERCOSUR was estimated to be worth 2.5 billion dollars in 2002-2003.

Similarly, India is negotiating a similar pact with the South Africa Customs Union (SACU) and is looking at ways in which the South Asia Free Trade Association (SAFTA), formed at a South Asian summit in January, could fit in.

Amorim said he expected the free trade agreements to eventually evolve into and ‘'connect large free trade areas spread across three continents''. Officials from the three countries agreed to work to increase trade flows among them from the present 4.6 billion dollars to 10 billion dollars by 2007.

For the rest, it would be left to the business community to organise the ‘'actual deals'' and Sinha emphasised that ‘'business must continue to work so that trade becomes a tool for development''.

‘'Governments can only create environments but business must come forward,'' said South African Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.

But she promised that no effort would be spared to facilitate business links. ‘'This is the first instance when a group of developing countries have come together on issues and have articulated a stand in their interest,'' said Sinha of the IBSA.

The forum of developing countries was set up under the ‘Brasilia Declaration' on Jun. 6, 2003 and is sometimes referred to derisively by critics as the ‘poor man's G-8'. It was formally launched at the U.N. General Assembly in September 2003.

Since then, there has been increased interaction between the leaders of the three countries. Among others, there has been a meeting of their defence ministers in South Africa, cooperation at the World Trade Organisation (WTO)'s fifth ministerial at Cancun, Mexico on agricultural issues, and a state visit by Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to India in January.

According to K C Pant, deputy chairman of India's planning commission, each of the three countries had something to offer the other.

‘'If you look at the energy sector, South Africa has the technology to convert coal into petroleum which would be useful for India with its vast coal deposits. Brazil has strengths in such areas as bio-diesel and gasohol.''

The three countries have identified as areas of cooperation affordable energy in rural areas, an emphasis on non-conventional energy, exploring bio-diesel as a commercially viable energy source by exchanging knowledge, and research and development in fuel cells.

A key area of interest is U.N. reforms and IBSA will work together to strengthen the multilateral system proceeding from the view that the U.N. Security Council as it is configured at present, is not representative enough.

India and Brazil will now support each other's candidature for inclusion in the Security Council as permanent members.

For India, the IBSA agreements come at a time when there have been fears that India is going overboard with free and preferential trade agreements. Sceptics fear that this could prove detrimental to the interest of domestic business and industry, which had benefited form decades of protectionism.

Over the past year, India has committed itself to a slew of such agreements with Thailand, the Association of South-east Asian Nations (ASEAN), BIMSTEC (which includes Bhutan, Burma, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand) and the seven-nation South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC).

Following tariff anomalies, such as in the metal sectors that cropped up following the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Thailand last year, India put on hold similar deals with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and decided to go slow on other proposals..

India is also seeking lower duty access to the MERCOSUR region for around 500 items, including auto parts, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, textiles, engineering goods and handicrafts.