Trebling India-South Africa bilateral trade by 2010 achievable: minister

03 August 2007

Ashwani Kumar, minister of state for industry has expressed confidence that India-South Africa bilateral trade would treble from $6 billion at present.

He was addressing the opening session of the two-day "India Calling" conference after inaugurating the centennial celebrations of the Indian Merchants Chamber (IMC), at Johannesburg along with South Africa''s President Dr Thabo Mbeki.

Mahatma Gandhi was an honorary member of the Indian Merchants Chamber in 1931.

Dr. Kumar is leading a 200-strong Indian delegation to this important event.

Kumar highlighted the strong political and economic relations between the two countries and expressed optimism on the further growth of bilateral trade and investment relations. "Last year, when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited South Africa for the joint celebrations of the centenary of Satyagraha, he agreed with President Mbeki that our new target should be to treble the value of bilateral trade by 2010.

"I believe this is eminently achievable, provided our businesses exploit the tremendous potential that exists for fruitful collaboration in a number of areas such as infrastructure, IT, telecom, mining and energy, biotech and healthcare, media, sports & entertainment, all of which are the subject of individual sessions at this business conclave", he said. The trade between the two countries in 2005-6 was in the region of USD 4 billion. By the end of 2007 the two-way trade is expected to reach 6 billion dollar.