Mar 2012 Bilateral Affairs

The Prime Minister of India, Manmohan Singh visited South Korea on 25 March 2012.India and South Korea agreed to set a new bilateral trade target of 40 billion US dollars by 2015. During his visit, India and South Korea decided that the seventh meeting of the Joint Commission will be held in New Delhi in 2012. It was also decided that both countries will explore constructive and forward looking ways to facilitate greater access to each other’s products and services.

The Fourth BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) Summit was held in New Delhi on 29 March 2012. The BRICS nations signed two major agreements during this summit. One was to boost trade among BRICS nations by offering trade in local currency. This will replace dollar as the main currency of trade among them. The other agreement was to set up a development bank on lines of multilateral lending agencies. The theme of the Summit was- BRICS Partnership for Global Stability, Security and Prosperity. BRICS declaration (Delhi declaration) issued at the end of the summit says situation concerning Iran cannot be allowed to escalate into conflict. Declaration says BRICS recognises Iran's right to peaceful uses of nuclear energy and supports resolution of issues through dialogue. The fifth BRICS summit will be held in March- April 2013 in South Africa. The first summit was held in Yekaterinburg, Russia in June 2009.

India and Colombia on 12 March 2012 signed a Cultural Exchange Programme (CEP) in New Delhi for the period of 2012-2016. Both India and Colombia shall contribute to the exchange and cooperation between institutions and organisations that deals with cultural affairs, as well as amongst cultural creators, researchers and cultural agents of the two nations.
Both the nations have agreed to set up a joint working group to look after the implementations of their programme. The joint working group will have a meeting alternately in India and in Colombia when decided by both the nations.

Input from Sakshi