Tshwane — The second annual India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) summit could see the trilateral initiative's trade target of $10-billion being reached within the next few years, writes Sholain Govender.

Events leading up to the summit, at the Presidential Guesthouse in Pretoria on 17 October, will provide a platform for the formation of trilateral business partnerships.

These are to enhance existing trade among the three member states and develop new partnerships.

President Thabo Mbeki, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh are set to sign six agreements aimed at boosting the south-south existing relationships and creating new programmes for developing neighbours during the summit.

Speaking at a pre-summit briefing, Ambassador Jerry Matjila, head of the Asia and Middle East section in the Department of Foreign Affairs said since IBSA's establishment of IBSA in 2003, trade amongst the three countries has increased to between $6 billion and $7 billion.

"IBSA is about business. IBSA is about unlocking the potential of the south," said Mr Matjila.

Discussions amongst the IBSA heads of state at the G-8 meeting in Evian in 2003 and ongoing trilateral consultations led to the Foreign Ministers of the respective countries meeting in Brasilia on 6 June, 2003.

At this meeting of Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma from South Africa, Celso Amorim from Brazil and Yashwant Sinha from India, the launching of the IBSA Dialogue Forum was formalised through the adoption of the Brasilia Declaration.

During the launch, the three ministers stressed that trilateral co-operation should focus on key areas that would yield results in the short to medium term.

It was also agreed that the three countries would identify best practices that should be showcased as examples to other developing countries.

Last year, President Mbeki attended the first IBSA heads of state summit in Brasilia, Brazil during which a number of co-operation agreements were signed.

These agreements included a pact on renewable energies such as bio-fuels like ethanol, in which Brazil is a world leader.

Another agreement signed seeks to harmonise product standards between the three countries to facilitate trade that is hoped will soon top $10 billion, as well as an agreement on sea transportation of their respective products.

Co-operation agreements in agriculture and information networks also featured.

The agenda for discussions included transport, general energy and nuclear energy within the context of the Non-Proliferation Treaty on weapons. Climate change, an issue which is moving increasingly higher up the global developmental agenda, also featured in discussions.

The objectives of the IBSA Dialogue Forum also include the promotion of international poverty alleviation and social development, the trilateral exchange of information, international best practices, technologies and skills, as well as to compliment each others competitive strengths into collective synergies.

IBSA currently has 14 working groups in action, with transport and energy being two of the key groups.

The trilateral initiative promotes cooperation in a broad range of areas, namely agriculture, climate change, culture, defence, education, energy, health, information society, science and technology, social development, trade and investment, tourism and transport.

At last year's summit, a trilateral free trade agreement was also signed between India and Mercosur, a regional Latin American trade grouping that includes Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela, and the South African Customs Union (SACU) that includes Swaziland, Lesotho, Botswana and South Africa.

Mr Matjila said the member states of Mercosur and SACU, along with India, have already given political mandate to Brazil and South Africa to further develop trade ties between the three regions.

This year, a business forum will form a major component of events leading up to the one-day summit and will see over two hundred business people from India, Brazil and South Africa attend discussion groups at the Sandton Convention Centre on 15th and 16th October.

Mr Matjila said it was a chance for the business people attending to form trilateral companies, especially in view of the emerging opportunities in the transport, maritime and aviation, sector.

He said increased volume of air traffic had resulted in plans for one Indian airline, Jet Airlines, to fly to OR Tambo International Airport soon and government hoped that the private sector would move into this area.

Other discussions that will be take place in Sandton include technology, a parliamentary forum which members of parliament from the three member states in attendance, an academic forum and a women's forum which will focus on gender economic inclusivity.

Feedback from all the forums will be given to the three heads of states during the summit.

Mr Matjila also said that the heads of states will most likely be signing six agreements during the summit related to public administration, higher education, health and medicines, social development, cultural cooperation and energy.

In terms of energy, Mr Matjila said that new working groups on climate change have been discussed by IBSA delegations over the last two years. He said South Africa was looking into the use of bio-fuels and wanted to learn from Brazil, a country which currently uses almost 40 percent bio-fuels.

The ambassador said government hoped the agreements would be accompanied by programmes of action which would facilitate the implementation of the agreements.

Also on the agenda for the summit is the IBSA fund to which each member state contributes $1 million annually.

Ambassador Matjila said the fund, a rapid response fund providing money to projects where funds usually take a long time to be made available, would be evaluated and South Africa would put forward suggestions of countries, like Burundi, in which programmes can be supported through IBSA.

The purpose of the IBSA Fund is to implement duplicable, phased projects in needy developing countries.