Cape Town – Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies says he will use the visit by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Director General Roberto Azevedo to highlight the trade interests of developing countries in the international trade space.
The Minister said this when he briefed journalists on the visit of the WTO Director General at the Imbizo Centre, on Thursday.
He said he would use the visit by the Director General, who has also undertaken visits to several African countries, to reiterate the position of South Africa as well as other developing countries and ensure that trade imbalances are discussed.
The visits also takes place following the recent Ministerial Conference that was held in Nairobi.
“I am going to take the opportunity to explain to the Director General that South Africa and the African continent, now more than ever -- facing the same sort of challenges like his own country, the collapse of the commodity prices -- that what we need to do is to industrialise and move up the value chain,” he said.
The Director General is in Africa to reflect and discuss the Nairobi work programme with several countries.
Minister Davies said that South Africa recognised that the World Trade Organisation is now in a period of reflection, which he welcomed.
“Our view has been that we strongly supported the mandate that was negotiated and agreed at the Doha Ministerial Conference in 2001,” he said.
The Doha Round is the latest round of trade negotiations among the WTO member states, which aims to achieve major reform of the international trading system through the introduction of lower trade barriers and revised trade rules.
The work programme covers about 20 areas of trade.
The round is also known semi-officially as the Doha Development Agenda as its fundamental objective is to improve the trading prospects of developing countries.
The Minister said the DOHA Ministerial Conference of 2001 was a very historic declaration, which stated that “the needs and interests of developing countries should be placed at the heart of the work programme”.
“We supported that because the biggest distortions in international trade, according to our estimations, were the various regimes on agriculture, subsidies, high tariffs and different kinds of subsidies in agriculture that distorted international trade to the disadvantage of developing countries.
“So we looked to the Doha round to deliver an outcome on agriculture trade that would remove these distortions and allow developing countries to make progress in agriculture and value added agro-processing products,” Minister Davies said.
Director General Azevedo said he would use the visit to listen to all the concerns that South Africa has.
“We are at a state in Geneva that requires thinking, reflection… Africa has been and will continue to be a central part of our deliberations. It is important that I listen and understand what the priorities are and what the views are,” he said. – SAnews.gov.za
