PM leaves on nine-day visit to Brazil and Cuba

New Delhi, Sep 10 (UNI) Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today left on a nine-day visit to Brazil and Cuba for the India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) and Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summits which are expected to set the stage for a new era in South-South cooperation.

Dr Singh, who will reach Brasilia tomorrow after an overnight stay in Frankfurt, will have bilateral meetings with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and other Brazilian leaders on September 12, during which the two sides will sign as many as eight agreements aimed at taking their relationship to a new high.

The first IBSA summit will be held on the following day at the end of which the three-year-old grouping of the largest democracies in Asia, Africa and Latin America will sign five trilateral documents designed to bring them closer to each other, especially in the areas of agriculture, biofuels, information technology and trade.

The 14th NAM Summit at Havana on September 15-16 will see the coming together of 116 member-states with a renewed resolve to project a new and contemporary vision of the movement and make it more relevant to the post-Cold War and post 9/11 world.

Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath and Minister of State for External Affairs Anand Sharma have already left for Brasilia.

Dr Singh will leave for home from Havana on September 17 and is scheduled to be back here on the night of September 18 after an overnight stay at Frankfurt.

This will be the first bilateral visit to Brazil by an Indian Prime Minister in 38 years after Mrs Indira Gandhi had visited the country in 1968.

UNI SA RL/PA VA KN1514