India, Brazil and SA look to improve trade

Brazil's da Silva (C) poses with India's Manmohan Singh (L) and South Africa's Thabo Mbeki

The inaugural Heads of State Summit between India, Brazil and South Africa is currently underway in Brazil in an attempt to aggressively expand three way trade between the emerging economies.

Among other things, they're chasing a $10 billion trade target by next year with the aim of also lifting the weaker economies of Latin America, Africa and South Asia. President Thabo Mbeki is leading a high level South African business and government delegation.

Garth le Pierre, of the Institute for Global Dialogue, says: “I think collectively the muscle that they have in terms of representing the interests of the developing countries is such that it gives us a greater presence.”

Jayanthi Ntarajan, a former Indian minister, says: “The framework of IBSA is very important in order to formulate areas of co-operation where we can have one voice to make sure it's heard.” The three countries are eyeing multi-billion dollar investment opportunities among themselves and have already set a target of ten billion dollars over the next 17 months.