The largest ever business contingent from South Africa that accompanied President Jacob Zuma on his maiden visit to any Asian country as president of the coutry would result in emergence of new areas of cooperation between India and South Africa, a celebrated South African filmmaker has said.
Anant Singh who was a part of the delegation led by President Zuma that visited India said, "there is a great deal of interest in the ICT (information and communication technology), media and entertainment sector from Indian companies. It is promising that they have displayed a keen interest to work in South Africa".
From the perspective of the film industry, production companies have indicated that they would like to shoot at the new Cape Town Film Studios which will open in October this year.
Singh's company VideoVision has a major stake in the new studios, which are also expected to further motivate Bollywood producers who have seen the coastal city as a popular shooting venue in recent years.
Singh said it was also encouraging that the high tech Indian animation industry was looking at significant projects in South Africa.
"We are also seriously considering collaborations with Indian feature and documentary filmmakers are currently assessing projects", Singh added.
Singh and Videovision Entertainment are founding members of the India-South Africa CEO Forum which was established seven years ago. The Forum was relaunched in India this week by President Zuma and India's Minister of Commerce Anand Sharma.
The co-chairs of the Forum are Ratan Tata from the Indian side and Patrice Motsepe from the South African side.
At the relaunch, Business Unity South Africa (BUSA) and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) pledged greater co-operation and collaboration between businesses of both the countries.