PM Narendra Modi in a meeting with Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said that, FDI cap in the area of special technology will be raised to 100% for greater cooperation with Brazil and South Africa in the field of defence and other areas. Talking about the naval exchanges, fleet review he said the two countries could later have joint exercises. He also pushed for cooperation in the field of agriculture, saying there were possibilities in areas like food processing and genome research and added that some Indian equipment is already being used in Brazilian jets.
While detailing Modi’s discussion, Secretary (West) in the Ministry of External Affairs Navtej Sarna said, there was a request from Modi to expand the list of items from the current 450 to 2000 which are traded between India and MERCUSUR (a grouping of Latin American countries), which may have a greater impact on business. He further said that Modi pitched for more cooperation in the field of defence, including joint production of equipment with Jacob Zuma (President of South Africa) and the transfer of technology, which can also help the developing nations to meet the challenge in the climate change.
During the meeting there was a discussion of upcoming meeting on climate change, where PM favored the coordination among BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) countries to have a common position and also said that greater transfer of technology would help developing nations to meet the challenge of climate change.