India is expected to seek from South Africa market access for mangoes, grapes and bovine meat in order to increase the country's exports.
The issue is likely to be raised by Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma during his meeting with South African Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies on Tuesday here.
Sharma is here for the 3rd India-Africa Trade Ministers meeting.
The South African authorities are in the process of conducting a Pest Risk Analysis (PRA) for import of mangoes and grapes from India.
"The Minister would ask his counterpart to expedite the PRA and consider granting market access to Indian mangoes and grapes, as our request of market access is pending for a long time now," an official told PTI.
Sharma would also express his concerns over the temporary suspension placed by the South African authorities on frozen boneless buffalo meat imports from India.
South Africa had put a temporary suspension on imports of frozen boneless buffalo meat from India in 2011.
"The minister would request that the matter may be looked into as the Indian meat conforms to the highest international norms and standards," the official said.
Both the sides are also expected to discuss the proposed Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement.
Further, the official added that both the ministers would review the progress of the talks on India and Southern African Customs Union (SACU) preferential trade agreement. Under such a pact, countries provide duty concessions to each other on few products.
India has proposed an average Margin of preference (MOP) of 70 per cent in the agreement. MOP is expressed as percentage of tariff concession offered. 20 per cent MOP would mean that imports will be charged 20 per cent less than the prevailing duty.
SACU includes Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland. The last round of negotiations was held in New Delhi in October, 2010.
India is one of the largest importers of South African coal.
"There existed tremendous scope for co-operation and joint ventures between public sector undertakings of the two countries in this sector and India was also be keen on investing in the energy market of South Africa," the official said.
For January-July period, the bilateral trade between India and South Africa stood at USD 8.75 billion. It was USD 13.58 billion in 2012, a decline from USD 14.48 billion in 2011.
