New Delhi, Sept 8 (IANS) Two days before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh leaves for Brazil to attend the summit of IBSA, a regional grouping comprising India, Brazil and South Africa, the government Friday went on a damage control exercise after a junior minister questioned the economic character of the IBSA.

"We have achieved considerable progress in crucial areas of energy, health and economy. There are complementarities between the three economies spanning three continents," Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran told reporters here.

"We are identifying new areas of cooperation. We are quite optimistic that the cooperation among IBSA countries will only grow stronger in the days to come," Saran said.

He was replying to a question on remarks made by Minister of State for Commerce Jairam Ramesh in an interview to a Brazilian daily that quoted him saying that IBSA was "a little fictitious from an economic point of view."

In the interview, Ramesh also said that instead of being natural allies, India and Brazil were competitors in the manufacturing sector and had rival interests in agriculture.

Ramesh's remarks, coming as they did on the eve of Manmohan Singh's visit to Brasilia, caused much embarrassment in New Delhi and didn't go down well in Brazil.

Brazilian foreign minister Celso Amorim reportedly contacted Indian ambassador Hardeep Singh Puri and urged him to correct the impression before Manmohan Singh meets Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva Sept 12 for bilateral discussions.

The trilateral summit between Manmohan Singh, Lula Da Silva and South African President Thabo Mbeki will take place Sept 13.

A clutch of pacts will be signed among IBSA countries that will include cooperation in areas of agriculture, maritime transport, information technology and trade regulations.

The declaration, that is proposed to be brought out at the end of the summit, will focus on a range of regional and global issues like reforms of the UN, including the expansion of the UN Security Council, terrorism, human rights, the situation in the Middle East and Lebanon, an equitable rule-based trade regime and peaceful uses of nuclear energy.

The IBSA, which was established three years ago, reflects the rapid growth in partnership between the three countries, Saran said.

India and Brazil, South America's largest economy, will also sign a slew of agreements in crucial areas of scientific and technological cooperation, air services and oil exploration.