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PRETORIA, July 8 (Xinhua) -- South Afria and India have set themselves ambitious goals, including a bilateral target of advancing trade to the level of 18 billion U.S. dollars by 2018, President Jacob Zuma said on Friday.
"Achieving this target will require an increase in private sector deliberations as well as government focusing on the resolution of barriers that are impeding the expansion of trade amongst others," Zuma said at the South Africa-India Business Forum in Pretoria, also attended by visiting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
South Africa and India hold enormous trade and investment potential that needs to be unleashed through closer strategic cooperation, said Zuma.
The South Africa-India Business Forum will serve as a platform to achieving the goals, he said.
"We need to explore ways and means of continuing, increasing and diversifying our trade and investment initiatives in the respective economies," said Zuma.
The two countries are major players in the global economy and share a common vision of shaping the development agenda through IBSA(India, Brazil and South Africa), BRICS and other related platforms, he said.
Modi said India is ready to assist South Africa in the areas of technology as well as skills development.
Modi said India has put in place economic reforms that have opened up key sectors for foreign investors to explore.
India is South Africa's sixth largest trade partner with trade in 2015 being at almost 95 billion rand (about 6.6 billion U.S. dollars). Trade with India represented 4.9 percent of South African imports and 4.1 percent of exports last year.
While the trade surplus is in favour of India, efforts are underway to promote South African exports of especially value added products.
Modi arrived in South Africa earlier on Friday on the second leg of his four-nation African tour. He has visited Mozambique and will visit Kenya and Tanzania. Enditem
