A day after India and Brazil signed and exchanged three Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) across key sectors, including critical minerals and mining sector, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Sunday (February 22) hailed the trade ties with India and said he hoped for more.
Lula da Silva, in an address to the India-Brazil Economic Forum in New Delhi, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set a target of USD 20 billion by 2030. Da Silva said, “When I came here for the very first time, the trade between Brazil and India was only $2.4 billion. Now it has reached USD 10.5 billion.”
India-Brazil trade ties
Lula da Silva is on a five-day visit to India, primarily to attend the AI Impact Summit and hold talks with PM Modi. On Saturday, the two countries signed a key pact for cooperation in critical minerals, with Prime Minister Modi and Lula da Silva resolving to ramp up bilateral ties and jointly navigate geopolitical turbulence.
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In their wide-ranging talks, Modi and Lula also discussed implications of US Supreme Court striking down President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs.
In their talks, the two leaders vowed to shore up bilateral ties in a range of other sectors including defence, energy, healthcare and digital public infrastructure while emphasising on deeper India-Brazil strategic engagement to navigate the fragmented geopolitical environment.
‘Bound by similarities’
The Brazilian president emphasised the economic potential of the two countries and the need for new industries in his own country. “We’ll reach USD 30 billion of trade because the economic potential of the two countries is very strong. If we take into account the healthcare industry, we’re leaving this country with seven MOUs or agreements that were signed, which is important,” he added.
President Lula termed Brazil’s trade relationship with India more democratic and noted, “because when you deal with rich countries, those countries that are accustomed to dealing with many other countries, it’s a sort of authoritarianism in the negotiations, not taking into account the happiness of each nation, with India, it’s different.”
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Lula da Silva said Brazil and India are bound more by common needs than by differences in religion or language. Highlighting the similarities in outlook and developmental goals, he said discussions with Indian business leaders, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh reflected a strong alignment of interests. “So it’s much easier for us to work and to establish an action plan, and to establish targets or goals and to build partnerships between Brazilian entrepreneurs and Indians and invite them to make investments in Brazil,” he affirmed.
2005 trip
Recalling his first trip to India in 2005, he addressed how it was a turning point for the country. “India had accrued $100 billion in international hard currency reserves. I came back to Brazil convinced that we needed to build up our international reserves, and we had to have an extra buffer.”
“We left that position of debtors of the IMF to the creditors of the IMF. We accrued reserves of international hard currencies of $360 billion.”
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Reflecting on the country’s international ties, Lula said, his government has created 520 new markets for Brazilian goods in a span of 3 years and they are determined to recover the image of Brazil in the world. “We are closing a cycle of international trips that was within our strategy for this third term to reclaim the image and the negotiation power that Brazil had achieved in the world. It’s much more than we could have imagined such a short time,” he added.
Cultural diplomacy
Talking on the cultural diplomacy between India and Brazil, da Silva recalled ”I was surprised yesterday, at the State dinner and at lunch too. I don’t know if the Brazilian journalists remember this, but when Prime Minister Modi went to visit Brazil last year, we did research on the song that he preferred most. We went to São Paulo to try to find a singer who could sing the song that he enjoyed most. So we did a surprise for him at the Palacio da Alvorada in Brazil, and it was visible that he was touched by the song that we chose to play for him,” Lula remarked.
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He continued, ”Yesterday I was surprised because during lunch we started to hear a song. I saw that that song had something to do with us. Then they played other songs from the Brazilian composers. They played Asa Branca.”
In a joint statement on Saturday (February 21), Prime Minister Modi said, “Brazil is India’s largest trading partner in Latin America. We are committed to taking bilateral trade beyond USD 20 billion in the next five years. Our trade is not just a figure, it’s a reflection of trust,” Modi said in his media statement in presence of the Brazilian leader.
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