India has asked South Africa to complete their internal discussions so that a broad based Preferential Trade and Investment Agreement could be reached with the Southern Africa Customs Union to serve the mutual interest of both sides.

Addressing the India- South Africa Business forum in Pretoria,the President Mrs. Pratibha Devisingh Patil expressed confidence that this Agreement will provide great opportunities for expansion of trade in goods and services and two-way investment.

Saying that the economic and commercial exchanges between two countries are at the core of bilateral ties,she invited the South African captains of industry to invest in India in the field of infrastructure, Power, roads, airports and ports for which investments of close to one trillion US Dollars would be required in the next five years.

Mrs. Patil said that to achieve energy security , renewable energy and gasification of coal are areas in which both the countries could work together.

Mrs.Patil asserted that sharing knowledge and experience, to translate the cutting-edge knowledge of science into products for the market wil yield benefits both in terms of new employment and new products for consumers.

Speaking on the ocassion the President of South Africa Jacob Zuma sought to explore new areas of economic cooperation including nergy,information and communication technology ,manufacturing and infrastructure development.He said,establishing the BRICS Development Bank could be realised as a south-south strategy when South Africa holds BRICS Summit next year.

Our correspondent understands that though the growth rate of over forty-three percent in bilateral trade in 2010-11 is impressive by any standard, much more is there to be achieved.