South Africa to Boost Ties With New Powerhouses

Published on Thursday 31st December 2009

SA planned to strengthen trade ties next year with other dynamic industrialising economies such as China, India, and Brazil, which united in a common front at this month's climate change talks in Copenhagen.

The common position of the four countries, which all have industrialising economies but are burdened with severe developmental challenges, is a binding force in international negotiations on a number of fronts as they resist attempts by developed nations to categorise them as developed, rather than developing.

What the world needed with trade and climate change negotiations, Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies said this week, was for developed countries to make big concessions to developing countries to build a fairer world. Instead, strong demands for concessions were made against the larger developing countries, including SA.

As far as strengthening south- south trade was concerned, Davies said discussions were in the pipeline on an enlargement of the trade agreement between India, the Southern African Customs Union (Sacu) and Latin American trade grouping Mercosur.

Last month, "a historic first ministerial meeting" took place in Geneva, of India and all the member countries of Sacu and Mercosur, and not only the big players such as Brazil and SA as had happened in the past.

"This was a very important meeting because it gave us an opportunity to talk about how this relationship could also be used to support the smaller players (such) as Uruguay and Paraguay and SA's partners in Sacu," Davies said. "We want to push this process much further forward. This will be our priority this year."

Dominating the international trade arena, however, would be Doha round of the World Trade Organisation talks and whether there would be any momentum towards the convening of a ministerial meeting at the end of March.

There were significant doubts about this, Davies said, and it would depend on the willingness of the US, which was more likely to want to stall further talks until after midterm congressional elections next November.

Rather than pushing for a speedy conclusion to the round, SA was demanding an agreement that would be developmental and would require the US to make significant concessions on its agricultural subsidies.

"We don't think there that there is much indication that a conclusion, if it happens in March, is going to bring us much closer to realising our developmental mandate. That is our concern," the minister said.

Trends indicated a weakening of developmental objectives rather than their strengthening.

Davies said the US wanted to hold bilateral meetings with the bigger developing countries to determine what market access they would extend to it.