![\"Rob](\"http:\/\/www.thebizsense.com\/za\/files\/2011\/04\/Rob-Davies.590.jpg\" "\\"Rob-Davies.590\\"")
<\/a>Rob Davies - South Africa<\/p><\/div>\n
Sanya, China \u2013 South Africa\u2019s Minister of Trade and Industry Rob Davies has made it clear that the five Brics countries will not compromise in their efforts to create fairer global trade conditions for developing nations at the Doha round.Speaking in Sanya ahead of tomorrow\u2019s Brics Summit, Davies said South Africa remained committed to seeing an outcome of the Doha development round, which pledges to help uplift developing countries with fairer trade tariffs and rules, particularly in agriculture.<\/p>\n
Negotiations have been on the go for almost 10 years and the most recent round broke down in 2008 when negotiators failed to reach a compromise on agricultural trade rules. But Davies said he remained optimistic on a conclusion to the round.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs SA, we have said repeatedly that we are committed to seeking an early and successful completion to the Doha round, but we will define successful in terms of giving effect to the developmental mandate of Doha. And we\u2019ve said before that if we have to choose between early and successful, we would choose successful,\u201d Davies said at a joint press briefing with his Brics counterparts following a meeting between Brics ministerial trade heads.<\/p>\n
However, he said he was concerned that significant parts of the developing world appeared not to be ready to conclude negotiations.<\/p>\n
He said there was no other opportunity at present in which to reform multilateral trade rules. \u201cI think the message that we would want to send out as South Africa is that there is no other kind of round other than Doha,\u201d said Davies, who arrived in Sanya last night.<\/p>\n
Brazil\u2019s under-secretary for foreign affairs, Valdemar Carneiro Leao, said all the members of Brics had \u201ca strong interest\u201d in seeing the Doha round succeed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will again emphasise the contributions given by the developing world have been unprecedented and it\u2019s important that this should be taken into mind,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Davies said there was a need to develop a series of agreements and relationships that promoted development among the Brics group \u2013 particularly those that increased trade in value-added goods and investments in beneficiation of respective primary products of these countries.<\/p>\n
He believed that the co-operation that Brics countries could help foster among themselves could be a \u201cmodel\u201d for the rest of the world.<\/p>\n
China\u2019s Minister of Commerce, Chen Deming, said a liaison group would be set up to look into specific measures to broaden South-South relations and trade.<\/p>\n
Future trends would be assessed before a decision was taken whether to set up an institutional framework or carry out specific measures to expand business co-operation between Brics members.<\/p>\n
Deming said he and his four counterparts had held a \u201cfruitful\u201d 90-minute meeting which covered three issues \u2013 the various policies adopted by each country following the global downturn, how Brics members can enhance trade and economic co-operation and how Brics countries can safeguard the interests of developing countries through multi-lateral co-operation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe still face many common challenges in the post-crisis era which require us to work even more closely, make the best use of our complementary advantages in capital, resources, market, science and technology and human resources and keep upgrading our economic co-operation and trade,\u201d said Deming.<\/p>\n
He said the world economy was recovering, but still faced major challenges \u2013 including the crisis in the Arab world, Japan\u2019s recovery from last month\u2019s massive earthquake, a debt crisis in Europe, as well as the threat of increasing inflation and asset bubble problems.<\/p>\n
These are aspects which the Bric countries would be watching closely, according to India\u2019s Minister of Commerce Anand Sharma.<\/p>\n
Turning to the issue of Russia\u2019s ascendancy to the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Deming said it was \u201cextremely unreasonable\u201d that 18 years after applying to join the world trade body, Russia still had not been granted membership.<\/p>\n
He said the admission of Russia would make the WTO more representative and expand the influence of multilateral trading system.<\/p>\n
Russia\u2019s Deputy Minister of Economic Development, Oleg Fomichev, expressed his gratitude for fellow Brics countries supporting Russia\u2019s membership to WTO membership and their pledge to help speed up negotiations at Geneva around Russia\u2019s ascension to the world trade body.<\/p>\n
He said a large number of problems in each of the countries \u201ccarried common characters\u201d and could be tackled by setting up institutional linkages between the Brics countries.<\/p>\n
Trade between the Brics countries between 2001 and 2010 increased 15 times, and is increasing 28 percent annually and now stands at $230 billion.<\/p>\n
The five countries make up close to three billion people or 43 percent of the world\u2019s population, $11 trillion or 16 percent of world\u2019s GDP, and $4.6 trillion or 15 percent of world trade, said Deming.<\/p>\n
South Africa\u2019s exports to Brics countries increased fourfold between 2006 and 2010, while imports had doubled from Bric countries, according to Davies.<\/p>\n
This, while Brazil\u2019s trade with China has grown more than 10 times in the last five years \u2013 from $5 billion to $56 billion, with China last year becoming Brazil\u2019s biggest trade partner, said Leao.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, a smiling President Jacob Zuma touched down early this morning at Sanya Phoenix International Airport in the South African Airforce Boeing 737, the Nkwezi, accompanied by his wife Nompumelelo Ntuli.<\/p>\n
Zuma and his delegation were greeted by a contingent of 18 guards and immediately left for his hotel, the Hilton Sanya Resort and Spa, in Yalong Bay.<\/p>\n
Zuma is expected to hold bilateral meetings in Yalong Bay with his Russian counterpart, Dimitry Medvedev this afternoon, followed by a second bilateral meeting in the early evening with Chinese President Hu Jintao. \u2013 BuaNews<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sanya, China \u2013 South Africa\u2019s Minister of Trade and Industry Rob Davies has made it clear that the five Brics countries will not compromise in their efforts to create fairer global trade conditions for developing nations at the Doha round.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":81,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebizsense.com\/za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebizsense.com\/za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebizsense.com\/za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebizsense.com\/za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebizsense.com\/za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebizsense.com\/za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebizsense.com\/za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80\/revisions\/83"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebizsense.com\/za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebizsense.com\/za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebizsense.com\/za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebizsense.com\/za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}