By NNN-BuaNews
Pretoria : India, Brazil and South Africa have committed to increasing trade amongst themselves to US$ 15 billion by 2010.
In addition, the leaders of the three countries have urged business and industry players to be more ambitious and to exceed that target.
This emerged from the second India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) Heads of State Summit that concluded on Wednesday.
President Thabo Mbeki, India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Brazil’s President Lula da Silva led high-ranking delegations to the Summit to discuss a wide range of issues.
These ranged from cooperation aimed at poverty eradication and development; further enhancing political and trade relations amongst the three countries and developments with regard to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations and the conclusion of the Doha Development Round, amongst others.
During the Summit, the three Heads of State also received reports from representatives of the various IBSA working groups including business, academics, the Parliamentary forum, civil society forum and the women’s forum.
They also supported the establishment of two additional working groups on Human Settlement Development and on Environmental and Climate Change.
In addition the three countries signed new agreements on cultural cooperation, cooperation in health and medicine, and Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) on social issues, higher education, tax administration and wind resources.
Speaking to reporters following the meeting, the three leaders concurred that the meeting was fruitful and constructive.
“We all agree that the meeting was successful,” said President Mbeki, adding that the signing of agreements further consolidated the trilateral cooperation.
He said the Tshwane IBSA Declaration, following the summit, gave a “comprehensive picture on matter on which we have been focusing.”
“We were pleased to listen to the various working groups and we are impressed with the work that is being done,” he said.
Mr Mbeki highlighted that IBSA had set up a fund to assist other developing countries, particularly the poorest, such as Guinea-Bissau.
“We set up the fund so that our pooled resources can contribute in countries poorest than us, to help them develop,” he explained.
Prime Minister Singh explained that the discussions “showed that there was a convergence of views” in many areas.
He expressed his happiness that the discussions had been “very fruitful and constructive” and that the meeting had deliberated on how the three countries could pool all their resources for their collective benefit.
Amongst the similarities that the three countries shared, Mr Singh explained that each had also established creative social development initiatives to uplift the lives if its people.
“IBSA is a unique model of trans-national cooperation. We come from three different continents but we share the same views.
“We also held very constructive discussions on the Doha Development Round of talks and it is important that we remain committed to achieve balanced, equitable outcome of this process,” he said.
President da Silva said the future success of agreements signed at this summit would be due to the political and ideological symmetry of the three countries, as well as the trust that exists between the leaders and staff.
He said there was a great affinity amongst the IBSA states and that the countries had common interests, objectives and “we want the best for our people.”
“We know what we want. We know how to achieve that and we know that we can do much more than what we have achieved already,” said President da Silva in his closing statements.
He added that each country should aim to build a participatory model to encourage involvement and interaction of all the people.