India and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), a regional grouping of 14 African nations, on Thursday decided to set up a forum to boost trade and other ties, officials said.
The decision was taken after a visiting SADC delegation and Indian Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha held talks and discussed setting up a preferential trade agreement which would lead to a free trade agreement, an Indian foreign ministry spokesperson said.
The India-SADC forum would ”formalise” relations between the two
sides, the spokesman said.
Sinha and the delegation also discussed food shortages in Africa and Indian experience in agriculture, along with the Aids crisis and cooperation in human resource development, information technology and World Trade Organisation negotiations.
The member countries of the SADC are Angola, Botswana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, the Seychelles, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. – Sapa-AFP