New Delhi, Oct 16 (IANS): Prime Minister Manmohan Singh heads for Pretoria Monday to attend the 5th India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) Summit Oct 18 where global economy, security and UN reform will be in focus, officials said.
"Bilateral meetings between our prime minister and President Jacob Zuma of South Africa and President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil are also envisaged," said M. Ganapathi, secretary-west in the external affairs ministry, ahead of the visit.
The prime minister's delegation will include External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna, Commerce Minister Anand Sharma, National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon, and his Principal Secretary Pulok Chatterjee.
"One of the important issues which will naturally figure in the summit would be the current global financial situation. Everyone agrees that the situation is not as easy as it was and it is fairly complicated and difficult," Ganapathi said.
"It is also significant that within a month's time, the three leaders will also meet in the G20 Forum. So, it is relevant and it will be taken forward," he said, referring to the summit scheduled in Cannes in November.
The summit comes against the backdrop of a recent victory of sorts for the three nations where they came together and managed to block a resolution against the Syrian government that the Western world wanted the UN Security Council to pass.
The decision to abstain from voting on the resolution by IBSA representatives, who are on the Security Council as non-permanent members for the first time together, came after a visit to the African nation earlier.
"Obviously, the visit to Syria by IBSA representatives and frequent exchange of views on the vote was an important indicator of the fact that IBSA permanent representatives, IBSA officials and leaders will like to take forward their engagement," said Ganapathi.
The leadership is also expected to take stock of the developments in the IBSA Trust Fund, to which each of the countries contributes $1 million every year. The fund intends to replicate scalable projects in developing countries for capacity building.
Officials said projects have been conceived in Haiti, Guinea Bissau, Cape Verde, Burundi, Palestine, Cambodia, Laos, Sierra Leone, Vietnam, Sudan and South Sudan. The projects are executed in coordination with UN agencies.
The IBSA forum was launched in June 2003 when their foreign ministers met in Brasilia and agreed to set up a forum to hold regular dialogue and consultations on matters of mutual interest, notably in economic, defence and social affairs.
In 2006, the forum was upgraded to the summit level. Since then four summits have been held, two hosted by Brazil and one each by South Africa and India. The forum has 16 working groups on areas such as health, agriculture, education, technology and defence.