India has invited companies from Brazil to invest in the country’s national infrastructure, manufacturing in Special Economic Zones and the food processing sector.
In an attempt to accelerate talks on a trilateral free trade agreement (FTA) , the India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) summit decided to hold an annual meeting of trade ministers from the three countries beginning from March next year.
India will be launching negotiations for a comprehensive economic cooperation agreement (CECA) with Mercosur although it will first “expedite” talks for a preferential trade agreement with the South African Customs Union (SACU).
India is working on “upgrading” the tariffs agreement with Mercosur, which could translate in more items of trade being included in the Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) or move to free trade agreement with the LATAM countries.
India pledged on Thursday greater economic cooperation with Uruguay in sectors such as agriculture, pharmaceuticals, textiles, automobiles, machineries and IT. In 2009-10, bilateral trade stood at 64.3 million US dollars.