On 25 April the Department of Trade and Industry (the dti) issued a press release in which Dr Rob Davies, Minister of Trade and Industry, said the world could learn more from developing countries on how to engage in new dialogue for economic growth and development. He was speaking at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad) XIII Conference, held in Doha, Qatar. Davies said that there were many examples of successful policy programmes and measures that some developing countries had undertaken to overcome structural constraints, embarking on higher value added and employment-creating growth as well as development paths. “There is great value in developing new thinking and forging a new dialogue on appropriate strategies for economic growth and development in developing countries in light of the shortcomings of mainstream economic thinking on the subject that have been exposed during the recent crisis. There is urgent need to draw on these experiences to construct a new, more relevant paradigm for development. Minister Davies told the conference that South Africa believed Unctad could play a positive role in providing technical and policy support for integration of Africa. “African countries have embarked on an ambitious agenda to promote development integration across large parts of the continent, based on combining market integration with programmes for infrastructure development and cooperation to develop value-added productive sectors. We are of the view that Unctad could play a positive role in ensuring that this agenda is successful,” said Davies. He stated that rapid increases in flows of trade and investment amongst developing countries (south-south cooperation) in the last few years offered enormous new opportunities for growth and development. “And Unctad can play a supporting role in identifying ways to ensure that such investment and trade supports sustainable development, builds cooperation, avoids destructive competition, and overturns entrenched patterns of trade wherein raw materials are exchanged for high value-added manufactured products,” he added. The Minister has urged Unctad to continue making a contribution to the dialogue on the reform and strengthening of open, rules-based multilateral trade and financial systems from a development perspective. He said this was more relevant in light of the impasse in the Doha Round negotiations and the ongoing challenges arising from shortcomings in the international financial institutions. According to Minister Davies, South Africa and the developing countries believe that there is a need for a deepened structured engagement on the issue of protectionism, and its impact on international production, trade, finance, investment and technology. “Of particular importance in our view, is the need to arrive at an appropriate shared understanding from a developmental perspective of the distinction between protectionism and the use of legitimate policy measures to promote industrial development and employment.” Davies highlighted that Unctad should also make a contribution to the new work on ‘trade in tasks’ that reflect global supply chains from a development perspective. In this respect some of the key dimensions that need to be considered would be: What does this mean for jobs? How is value addition shared along the chain? How do developing countries secure a larger share of value addition, amongst other things. He concluded by saying South Africa fully associated itself with the observation of the BRICS Trade Ministers meeting earlier this year, that “At a time when the global economy is in crisis, the Doha trade round is at an impasse and multilateralism is under challenge, it is vital for Unctad to strengthen its role of policy dialogue, consensus-building and capacity-building in developing countries”
