South African President Thabo Mbeki arrived in New Delhi on Wednesday on a state visit to open a new chapter in ties with India, which until 1994 shunned the African state because of its white minority government.
Mbeki was received on arrival at the airport by India’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Digvijay Singh and others, an official said.
New Delhi plans to lay out the red carpet for Mbeki during his four-day visit, which enters the official leg on Thursday with talks with Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and other Indian leaders after a ceremonial welcome.
”This is an extremely important visit by President Mbeki to India. He came in December 1996 as deputy president and since then our bilateral relations have grown manyfold,” Indian foreign ministry spokesperson Navtej Sarna said.
”Our relations have diverisified and have now become a strategic partnership,” Sarna said, adding that a large number of bilateral agreements were now in place to ”provide an institutional framework”.
Sarna hinted that Mbeki’s talks would focus on trade and other multilateral issues.
”Several areas of cooperation have been developed and our bilateral trade has increased from $45-million in 1993 to
$870-million in 2002.
”There have been key investments from major Indian companies into South Africa and we are developing areas of focus to cooperate in human resource development, which is an area … particularly important for both countries,” he said.
Mbeki is scheduled during his visit to sign four bilateral treaties including one on extradition and others on cooperation in
the maritime, health and medical sectors, other officials said.
”India is committed to deepening its relation with South Africa and we have set up a dialogue forum with the Southern African Development Community.
”A preferential trade agreement treaty is also under negotiations with the Southern African Customs Union,” Sarna said of Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland, which make up the forum.
Highly placed government sources said that Mbeki’s talks would specially focus on a trilateral treaty India and South Africa signed with Brazil in June to boost trade and pool their political muscle in talks with rich nations.
”The two sides will review the progress of the historic bloc we have formed and perhaps in a declaration announce a decision to speed up the work of a joint commission that has been set up under the treaty,” the source said.
Sarna said the trilateral treaty, signed after the G-8 group of rich nations failed to act on a proposal for subsidy cuts to help Africa, has taken giant strides.
”There certainly has been progress because they agreed to establish the trilateral joint commission with the three foreign
ministers on the focal points.
”They have again met and we are hopeful of a meeting again,” Sarna said of the bloc, which also plans to create a global fund to fight hunger.
”There was consensus in the meetings on many important areas including the strengthening of the United Nations, its reforms, the exercise of diplomacy as a means of maintaining international peace and security and South-South cooperation,” he added.
After his talks in New Delhi Mbeki will also visit India’s financial capital Bombay and the southern hi-tech hub Hyderabad.
India was a staunch opponent of apartheid and in 1946 stopped all contact, including in sports and business, with South Africa’s white minority government.
The two countries resumed ties when apartheid ended in 1994 and then president Nelson Mandela visited in 1995, a year after he was elected in South Africa’s first all-race elections.
India currently ranks South Africa as its 15th biggest export market and 24th most important import market. — Sapa-AFP