There is more to Brazil President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's five-day visit to India than the development of bilateral economic relations. True, the second visit in eight years by a Brazilian head of state signifies the sea change in economic relations between two of the biggest developing countries in the world. Two-way trade has doubled in four years and now stands at over $1 billion a year. Mr. Lula heads a high-level delegation that comprises a number of provincial governors, senators and business chiefs. Five bilateral agreements, including two on space and tourism, are to be signed and representatives of the two countries are exploring cooperation in pharmaceuticals and information technology. The Brazilian President's visit has already witnessed an unusual and significant development, the signing of a framework preferential trade agreement between India and the Mercosur group made up of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. However, beyond cementing bilateral and regional ties, Mr. Lula has travelled to India to further a grander strategic vision that Brazil hopes it can make a reality along with India, China and South Africa.

Brazil, under Mr. Lula, has realised that the only way developing countries can retain a measure of national autonomy in a unipolar world is through the larger economies of the South forging closer economic relations and formulating common positions in global fora. The alliance Brazil so successfully crafted and led on agriculture issues at the 2003 Cancun meeting of the World Trade Organisation demonstrated that this strategy could work in furthering the interests of the developing countries. Earlier, Brazil had overseen the formation of a tricontinental body, the India-Brazil-South Africa Dialogue Forum, to facilitate, among other things, closer coordination among the three countries in the international arena. Cancun, however, was only one event and the IBSA Forum is still only a channel for dialogue. The leading developing countries have a great deal more to do by way of building formal and informal ties among themselves before they can attempt to acquire muscle and negotiating independence in international economic organisations.

On the eve of his visit to India, the Brazilian President stated that India and Brazil could "change the trade geography of the world"; on his arrival, he declared his country sought "a strategic alliance" with India. What this means is clear: if the two countries increase bilateral trade manifold and simultaneously adopt common positions in global negotiations, they can have a major influence on the shape of world trade agreements. If this alliance includes China and South Africa as well, the impact on the content of global pacts will be much greater. In that event, the pattern of world trade could change. Brazil hopes to unveil its plans in greater detail at the eleventh United Nations Conference on Trade and Development that it will host later this year. India, however, is yet to reveal its mind about the Brazilian vision. It has of course worked with Brazil at the WTO and has been an active member of the IBSA Forum, but it has not openly demonstrated much interest in creating a larger alliance of major developing economies to work on a broader agenda. India's unwillingness to displease what the Government calls its "natural ally", the United States, may underlie this hesitation — just as Brazil's discomfort at being dominated by the U.S. is driving its search for allies in the South. However, it is in India's long-term economic interest to develop a measure of policy autonomy in a globalised world. The country has much to gain from responding more positively to the Brazilian initiative.