Singh's visit coincided with the centenary celebrations of Mahatma Gandhi's passive resistance movement launched in South Africa which ultimately helped liberate both countries.

"This is a most satisfying visit for me personally as it coincides with Gandhiji's 137th birthday today," Singh said after signing the strategic partnership with Mbeki in South Africa's administrative capital.

"Both our countries face the common problem of ensuring that the fruits of development reach them who need them the most," he told a joint press conference.

South Africa, India and Brazil have formed a bloc which fights against global trade inequalities and espouses the cause of the developing world.

The Pretoria agreement was followed by the signing of a pact on cooperation in education and another between Indian Railways which runs one of the world's biggest networks and South African railway company Spoornet.

The declaration listed "energy, tourism, health, automobiles and auto components, chemicals, dyes, textiles, fertilisers and information technology" as "priority sectors."

It said bilateral trade, standing at some four billion dollars last year, according to Indian estimates, should "at least treble by 2010."

Mbeki, lauding the long history of "friendship, solidarity and togetherness" with India, the world's first country to sever ties with the apartheid regime, said both sides needed to work on "bringing more content to this relationship."

He said both countries agreed on key international issues including the need for United Nations reforms and the restructuring of the Security Council.

Singh, meanwhile, said he solidly backed South Africa's bid for a seat on the Security Council, saying it deserved it "by virtue of its standing, its role and was eminently entitled to take that place."

Singh, who was accompanied by a high-powered business team including Ratan Tata, chief of India's Tata group -- a big investor in South Africa -- was due to address a meeting of South Africa's top businessmen later in Monday.

He was then set to visit a Johannesburg jail and meet with anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela before being hosted at a formal banquet by Mbeki.