India, Brazil to up trade to $10 bn

Brazil, a prominent member of Nuclear Suppliers Group, on Monday agreed on a civil nuclear cooperation with India as the two countries initiated a strategic dialogue to bolster ties aimed at taking bilateral trade up to $10 billion by 2010, from the current $2.4 billion.

At the talks between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva at Hyderabad House in New Delhi, the two sides also decided to enhance cooperation on a wide range of issues, including trade, investment, defence, energy, science and technology and space sectors. A CEOs' forum was also launched.

Holding the first meeting of the India-Brazil Strategic Dialogue, the two sides charted the future course of relations in nuclear energy for peaceful use.

The host country and Brazil also rejected the US' contention that developing countries were mainly responsible for climate change, asserting that it was the outcome of "unsustainable production and consumption pattern in the developed world".

"The problem of climate change, which essentially is the outcome of the unsustainable production and consumption pattern in the developed world, cannot lie in the perpetuation of poverty in developing countries," said a joint declaration adopted after talks between the PM and President Lula.

Brazil also reiterated its commitment to the development agenda in the Doha round of the World Trade talks, a stance strongly propagated by India.

Speaking at a business meeting organised various industry chambers, Lula said the developed countries would not be able to ignore the developing nations, especially the G-20 bloc, in the Doha round, if India and Brazil stayed firm on their demand for scaling down trade-distorting subsidies.

"In the past few years, globalisation has ensured that the developed countries like the US and the European Union do not remain a reference point for global trade," said Lula.

He pointed out the importance of developing countries in the present world economic order. "Big countries will have to sit and bargain with us. We do not need lessons from them. In fact, we can teach them," said Lula, who is leading a large Brazilian business delegation.

Lula's statements come at time when two crucial meetings of the developing and the developed nations are scheduled in the later part of this month.

The first will be the G-20 meeting in Geneva on June 11 to take stock of the Doha round. The main demand of this bloc is the removal of trade-distorting farm subsidies given by developed nations like the US.