India, South Africa should develop joint initiatives to promote innovations: President Zuma

New Delhi, June 4 (ANI): South African President Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma said on Friday that India and South Africa should develop joint initiatives to promote innovations to ride the current global wave of technologies to bring about the socio-economic transformation of their respective economies.

Zuma in his address said that India and South Africa have a shared global understanding on diverse issues covering trade negotiations, climate change, poverty alleviation, and peace and stability.

Referring to the bilateral investment ties, he said that Indian investments in South Africa already amount to six billion dollars and many Indian companies have become household names in South Africa.

Zuma said the bilateral opportunity rests on identifying the complementarity in trade and investment relations. This will also open up the broader southern Africa and rest of Africa markets for Indian companies, since South Africa is a gateway to the African markets as a whole. Likewise, South African companies would also be able to enhance their footprint in the Indian market.

He said that the extensive physical infrastructure development programmes initiated by the South African government will open up several investment opportunities for Indian companies in South Africa.

Minister of Commerce and Industry Anand Sharma said that the two countries should also develop strong partnerships in capacity building and skills development to complement the economic resurgence.

Noting that India was the first Asian country that President Zuma chose to visit since assuming the presidentship of his country, Sharma said the two governments should look to step up the joint efforts to obtain their rightful places in the emerging economic and political architecture and promote the reforms of the United Nations and Brettenwoods institutions. (ANI)