South Africa is seeking a preferential trade agreement with India, President Jacob Zuma said on Friday.

"We wish to expedite negotiations on a preferential trade agreement between India and the Southern African Customs Union, so that we may realise the great potential that exists by bringing these two markets closer to each other," Zuma said in his prepared remarks to the Business Interactive Session in New Delhi, India.

"As governments we are committed to removing the barriers to trade and investment."

Zuma had travelled to India with a large contingent of South African businesspeople in a bid to build stronger trade links.

"We have seen a dramatic increase in the participation of major Indian companies in South Africa, with investment stock from India amounting to around $6-billion," said Zuma.

He said the economic ties were being bolstered by political and diplomatic connections between the two countries. Zuma pointed out that India and South Africa had had a long relationship since the colonial period. He said the two countries also had a common ideological vision that was assisting business.

"It is a matter of significant advantage to our business communities that South Africa and India share a common global vision of peace, stability, social justice, and the economic upliftment of the poor and marginalised," said Zuma.

"Importantly, India and South Africa view each other as partners, rather than competitors."

He said this partnership would result in countries from the developing global South changing the existing world order.

"It will contribute to our shared vision of a new world order, in which the countries of the South are able to assume their rightful place among the family of nations," said Zuma.

Despite his comments on diplomatic and political partnerships, Zuma said the most important relationship would remain economic.

"For it is in the economic sphere, that this relationship is going to be most keenly felt, and in which it is going to have the most lasting impact," he said.