Trade and Industry Minister Dr Rob Davies says the election of Brazil’s Roberto Azevedo as the next director-general of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) offers a new opportunity to advance a multilateral trade agreement informed by the mandate agreed at the Doha Ministerial, in Qatar, in 2001.
Speaking ahead of his 2013 Budget Vote, Davies said South Africa was well acquainted with Azevedo and had actively supported his candidacy, following the “unfortunate elimination” of the African Union’s preferred candidate, Ghana’s Trade Minister Alan John Kwadwo Kyerematen.
“We congratulate Mr Azevedo and look forward to building a strong working partnership in advancing the WTO’s work,” Davies said.
But he also used the occasion to reassert South Africa’s stance that any Doha Ministerial work programme could only advance if it held true to the mandate of placing the interests of developing countries at the heart of the negotiations.
Azevedo, a career diplomat and Brazil’s permanent representative to the WTO since 2008, was chosen to succeed Pascal Lamy from September 1, following several voting rounds and ahead of Mexican contender, Herminio Blanco.
He is expected to seek to breath life into the moribund Doha Round, having used a presentation before WTO general council, after his nomination, to stress that the developmental agenda could not be discarded.
But he would have to do so in a context where many countries were showing a strong preference for bilateral trade arrangements and, in some instances, even greater protectionism.
For its part, South Africa, which was once a leading proponent of a multilateral trade agreement, had turned its attention to expanding relations with its fellow Brics-bloc participants – Brazil, Russia, India and China.
In addition, South Africa is focusing on the embryonic trilateral free trade agreement between the members of the Southern African Development Community the East African Community and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa.
Davies has also continually stressed that trade policy is a subcomponent of the country’s Industrial Policy. In fact, the latest iteration of the Industrial Policy Action Plan (Ipap) outlines a ‘developmental trade policy’ which emphasises flexible tariff setting, tightened national standards and compulsory specifications, and a clamp down on illegal imports and customs fraud.
In his address, Davies again stressed the primacy of the industrial policy, which was focused on actively supporting a reindustrialisation of the South African economy, through raising the local content in government procurement programmes, industrial financing schemes and competition policy.
The current Ipap emphasises six industrial-development pillars, including: minerals beneficiation; regional economic development and industrial integration; supply of local inputs into the public infrastructure programme; the development of new export markets; fostering local procurement and supplier development; and partnering with South Africa’s Brics counterparts.
“We believe that what we need in future is a higher impact industrial policy rather than a lighter-touch programme called for by some of our critics,” Davies concluded.