Brazil's President Lula to visit India

New Delhi, June 1 (UNI) Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will be on a State visit to India from June 3-5.

President Lula will be accompanied by a large delegation consisting of over 100 Ministers, officials and businessmen.

Great importance is attached to the visit as India and Brazil work closely in multilateral fora, including UN, WTO and G-20. India and Brazil are working together in the G-4 Group seeking permanent membership of UN Security Council.

India and Brazil along with South Africa cooperate in the trilateral IBSA partnership.

President Lula will have meetings with his counterpart Dr A P J Abdul Kalam and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha L K Advani and External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee.

Some agreements on bilateral cooperation will be signed during the visit, the foreign office said today.

President Lula and Dr Singh will interact with the newly formed India-Brazil CEO Forum. The co-chairmen of the Forum are Mr Ratan Tata and Mr Jose Sergio Gabrielli, CEO of Petrobras.

He will also address the Indian captains of business and industry in a function jointly being organised by CII, FICCI and Assocham on June 4.

Following Dr Singh's visit to Brazil in September last year, the bilateral relations have been upgraded to a 'strategic partnership'.

As part of this, a strategic dialogue was held in India on April 12 between National Security Adviser M K Narayanan and the Minister of External Relations Celso Amorim.

The third meeting of the Indo-Brazilian Joint Commission, held in New Delhi and co-chaired by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and the Brazilian Foreign Minister, has covered cooperation in a number of areas such as agriculture, science&technology, trade and investment, energy, education, defence, space, nuclear energy, health, culture and sports.

It has been agreed that a Festival of Brazil will be organised in India in January-March, 2008 and a Festival of India will be held in Brazil in July-September, 2008.

The trade between the two countries has been increasing significantly in recent years. In 2006, India's exports to Brazil were 1470 million dollars and imports 937 million dollars. A number of Indian companies have made investment and joint ventures in Brazil in areas such as pharmaceuticals, IT and energy. Brazilian companies have also started targeting India for investment and business in areas such as infrastructure, food processing and energy.

UNI