By IPS Correspondents
JOHANNESBURG, Oct 18 2003 (IPS)

This week South African president Thabo Mbeki paid a high-profile state visit to India when he took along 11 cabinet ministers to bolster a relationship increasingly important for the country’s South-South diplomacy.

Together with Brazil, the two countries belong to the India Brazil South Africa (IBSA) dialogue forum which was launched in June this year.

The key topics of this inter-continental forum were high on the agenda in New Delhi this week, where Mbeki and his Indian counterpart, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, discussed globalisation, multilateralism and the reform of the United Nations. In this, South Africa’s relationship with India has moved beyond a pure bilateral one to a more multi-dimensional and strategic engagement.

“In the past few years, the importance and necessity of a process of dialogue amongst developing nations and countries of the South has emerged,” the South Africa’s Department of Foreign Affairs said in a briefing paper.

India has also pledged 200 million U.S. dollars worth of grants, credits and loans for the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), a programme to kick-start the economic development of the continent.

The uneven impact of globalisation was a core theme of Mbeki’s visit: “large parts of the world have not benefited from globalisation. (The leaders) have agreed that globalisation must become a positive force for change for all peoples, and must benefit the largest number of countries,” said the briefing document.

The three countries which form the IBSA Dialogue were all part of the G20 Plus developing countries group which exercised its muscle to abort the trade talks at Cancun, Mexico, last month.

Globalisation and trade go hand in hand and the talks fell apart because the promised developmental focus of the Doha Round has not come to fruition.

The success of the developing countries in Cancun is likely to give impetus to another item on the agenda of Mbeki’s visit: the representativity of the Security Council. South Africa’s foreign affairs spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa confirmed the leaders had “stressed the need for an equitable balance in the composition of an expanded Security Council to provide a constructive voice to the aspirations of the developing countries.

“They believe that piecemeal and discriminatory approaches to such expansion will be inconsistent with the objectives of that world body,” he said. While the four-day visit which ends on Sunday was primarily political and part of the network of South-South relations the country is crocheting around the globe, it was also a trade mission.

India was a noted foe of apartheid and imposed political and trade sanctions against South Africa. Indian nationals with stamps of the apartheid era South Africa in their passport were censured. And the country also supported the then banned liberation movement, the African National Congress (ANC), both financially and through military training.

In 1993, it was among the first countries to establish diplomatic ties with a democratic South Africa and in the past 10 years, most diplomatic energy has gone into knitting together a political relationship. The range of agreements span the areas of defence, culture, health-care and medicine, science and technology and of late, even taxation.

“The excellent political relationship that has always existed between the two countries has fostered commercial and economic co-operation as well. Bilateral trade has risen exponentially since 1993, when India lifted the comprehensive sanctions that it had imposed on the apartheid regime in 1948,” said the Indian deputy high commissioner to South Africa, Banashri Bose Harrison.

Trade has blossomed from an anaemic 43 million U.S. dollars in 1993 to 870 million U.S. dollars last year, with the trade balance nominally in South Africa’s favour. While India ostracised South Africa during apartheid, trade between the two countries dates back centuries. In the 18th century, the first Indian indentured labourers were brought to work in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, and merchants followed in their wake, plying the traditional sari and spice route.

Today, the trade relationship is more sophisticated and has expanded to include two-way foreign direct investment. The countries trade in Information Technology (IT), human resources, pharmaceuticals, processed fruit, minerals and mineral beneficiation, among other areas of commerce.

Harrison said that South African businesses have invested 26.1 million U.S. dollars in his country, while Indian business activity in South Africa is also building, notably in brewing, tourism and the ferrochrome industry.

“However, looking at the complementarities and comparative advantages of the two economies, there is still considerable untapped potential for further co-operation,” said Harrison.

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