India may sign trade agreement with SA.

JOHANNESBURG: India may enter into a comprehensive trade and investment agreement with South Africa to bolster bilateral trade that has grown strongly despite the global slowdown.

“We are going to examine a comprehensive economic co-operation agreement with South Africa as it is now our strategic partner,” commerce and industry minister Anand Sharma said at an ’India Show’ organised by industry body CII in Johannesburg.

He said that the two-way trade between the India and South Africa has picked up in the current fiscal and it may help in reaching the target of $10 billion by 2012, this year itself.

The two sides have also decided to fast-track negotiations on a limited free trade pact between India and the fivemembers Southern African Customs Union (SACU).

The minister said the two sides will concentrate on speeding up the India-SACU preferential trade agreement to ensure that the trilateral partnership between India, Brazil and South Africa falls in place.

“This will greatly enhance co-operation between the three countries, which is important given the shift in weight that is taking place in the global economy towards the continents of Asia, South Africa and South America,” Mr Sharma said.

Bilateral trade between India and South Africa, which grew at a modest rate of about 4% in 2008-09 to $7.73 billion, has accelerated to $2.27 billion in the first quarter of the fiscal and may touch $10 billion by the end of the fiscal. In fact, India and China are the only two countries where South Africa managed to increase its exports last fiscal.

Source : economictimes.indiatimes.com