President Thabo Mbeki to depart for Brazil ahead of India-Brazil-South
Africa Summit
Pretoria - South African President Thabo Mbeki will later
today Tuesday 12 September, depart South Africa for Brazil where he will lead
a South African government delegation including Minister of Foreign Affairs Dr.
Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma to the strategic trilateral Summit between India-Brazil
and South Africa scheduled for Wednesday 13 September in Brasilia.
The Summit
will bring together for the first time within the context of IBSA, the three Heads
of State and Government President Mbeki and his Brazilian and Indian counterparts
President Lula da Silva and Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh. Thus far, the main
co-ordination of IBSA has been at Ministerial level which saw three successful
Ministerial meetings held in New Delhi in 2004, Cape Town in 2005 and Rio de Janeiro
early this year.
President Mbeki's visit to Brazil comes within the context
of the need to strengthen political, economic and trade relations between the
three countries with a view to advancing and consolidating South-South relations
for increased market and trade access. President Mbeki's delegation includes
Ministers Jeff Radebe, Mandisi Mpahlwa, Buyelwa Sonjica, Director-General of Foreign
Affairs, Dr. Ayanda Ntsaluba, senior government officials and a large business
and trade delegation.
The IBSA Summit of Heads of State and Government was
preceded by a meeting of the three respective Foreign Ministers in Brasilia held
today, Tuesday12 September as part of preparations for the Summit. Minister Dlamini
Zuma led the South African delegation to the Ministerial segment of the Summit.
In addition, Tuesday also witnessed the launch of the IBSA Business Forum and
the IBSA Academic Seminar, which ran parallel to the Ministerial meeting.
Since
its formation in 2003, IBSA has become instrumental in promoting hitherto unseen
closer coordination on global issues between South Africa, India and Brazil particularly
in the multilateral spheres such as the UN and WTO negotiations.
The IBSA
Summit will culminate in the signing of a number of Agreements and Memoranda of
Understanding between the three countries including:
Renewable Energies
(Bio-fuels),
Trade Facilitation for Standards, Technical Regulations
and Conformity Assessment,
Maritime Transportation,
Co-operation
in Agriculture and Allied Fields; and
Co-operation in the Information
Society
Areas of trilateral cooperation that would receive special
prominence during the IBSA Summit discussions are:
Energy
Transport
Climate
Change
IBSA has a number of Sectoral Working Groups in other areas
such as: Agriculture; Culture; Defense, Education; Health; the Information Society;
Science and Technology; Social Development; Trade and Investment and Tourism while
other specialised sectoral Working Groups are under consideration.
The following
IBSA funded projects - as part of poverty alleviation and enhancing South-South
cooperation - are currently underway via the IBSA Facility Fund that is administered
by the UNDP's South-South Unit in New York:
Africa: Guinea-Bissau (Development
of Agriculture and Cattle Farming)
Latin-America: Haiti (Collection of
Solid Waste: A Tool to Reduce Violence and Conflicts in Carrefour Feuilles)
Asia:
Laos (The proposed project has not reached implementation stage)
A project
of possible support to the Palestine National Authority is also under consideration.
Bilateral
trade statistics:
South Africa - Brazil (SA Rand)
Year
SA
Exports To
SA Imports From
Total
Trade
2003
1,338,188,000
5,343,996,000
6,682,184,000
2004
1,562,499,000
6,413,675,000
7,976,174,000
2005
2,034,310,000
8,341,326,000
10,375,636,000
2006*
1,228,673,000
3,984,405,000
5,213,078,000
South Africa
- India (SA Rand)
Year
SA
Exports To
SA Imports From
Total
Trade
2003
3,350,322,000
3,126,148,000
6,476,470,000
2004
3,713,043,000
4,547,261,000
8,260,304,000
2005
7,393,783,000
7,029,784,000
14,423,567,000
2006*
2,344,718,000
3,899,165,000
6,243,883,000
2006*
Period January to June 2006
Source: Department of Trade and Industry
Issued
by Ronnie Mamoepa on 082 990 4853
Department of Foreign Affairs Private
Bag X152 Pretoria 0001
