High hopes for India/SA bilateral trade

Bilateral trade between India and South Africa has the potential to surge from the current level of US$15 billion to US$50 billion in the next six to seven years, provided the Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) between the two is concluded soon, reports the Hindu Business Times. The newspaper’s online article quotes Malose Mogale, SA’s acting high commissioner to India, as saying that negotiations between the two countries on the PTA are on and many of the bottlenecks have been ironed out. Speaking on the sidelines of a meeting organised by the Federation of AP Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Thursday, Malose told the newspaper that South Africa was investing heavily in infrastructure development, including R205 billion on passenger and rail freight projects. “Europe will not recover now. The next frontier of economic development is in Africa and Asia,” he said.