President Patil wraps up her maiden foreign visit

By Ravinder Singh Robin

Cape Town (South Africa), Apr 24 : President Pratibha Patil wrapped up her maiden foreign visit to Latin American countries and arrived here for a night halt before returning home.

Indian High Commissioner to South Africa, R. K. Bhatia, and others welcomed her. The President would reach New Delhi on April 25 morning.

Patil was accorded a warm send-off at the Santiago Airport on Wednesday.

During her 12-day long tour to Brazil, Mexico and Chile, India has signed four agreements with Brazil on extradition treaty, oil and natural gas, agriculture and allied sectors and in civil defence and humanitarian assistance.

For the first time a business delegation also accompanied the President.

In the first phase of her tour, Patil visited Brazil where she had meeting with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva. Both leaders lauded their commitment to enhance bilateral trade, and said both countries would achieve 10 billion dollars bilateral trade mark by 2010.

During her tour to Mexico, Patil met her Mexican counterpart Felipe Calderon Hinojose. Both reiterated their assurance that the two countries would seek to promote bilateral relations that depend on goodwill and friendship between people. Both leaders also emphasized the importance to expand contacts in different fields like culture, education, tourism and film and television.

India and Mexico signed two agreements, one for cooperation in civil aviation and the other for cooperation in the energy sector.

During her trip to Chile, the two governments inked four cooperation agreements on science and technology, air services, sports and Antarctica expeditions.

President Patil and her Chilean counterpart Michelle Bachelet showed their commitment to strengthen their partnership to build a better world and an equitable global order. Both leaders claimed that their dialogue on bilateral, regional and international issues has been most fruitful.

ANI