South Africa's Minister of Trade and Industry, Dr Rob Davies arrived in Mexico on an official visit to attend the G20 Trade Ministerial Meeting starting tomorrow, 19 April 2012. The meeting will discuss "trade, growth, and jobs." The themes for discussion include "trade as a source of growth," "trade as a source of jobs," and "the imperative to keep markets open and to keep opening markets."
Minister Davies says South Africa believes that improving conditions to increase global trade remains critical to stimulate recovery of the global economy. He says that G20 must tackle the immediate and growing threat of protectionism amongst the G20 countries.
‘Participation of low-income countries in global trade is crucial for their growth and poverty reduction endeavours. G20 should foster concrete trade capacity measures to strengthen integration of regional markets, and market access, and the availability of trade finance in developing countries’, added Davies.
Last month during the BRICS Summit in India, trade Ministers raised their disappointment about the Mexico meeting’s agenda, saying that it appeared to undermine the independence and multilateral character of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) by asking trade ministers to agree on the creation of a super-body headed by the chiefs of Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries and the WTO to oversee all the review and monitoring functions of global trade.
From Mexico Minister Davies will proceed to Qatar where he will attend the World Investment Forum (WIF) 2012 that is organised by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in partnership with the government of Qatar.
WIF 2012 will focus on the changing patterns of foreign investment in the post-crisis global economy, including investment in low-carbon growth and technologies. It will also address investment-related challenges and opportunities arising from emerging global economic governance structures, and contribute to developing partnership and policy options for promoting sustainable investment.
Minister Davies will also co-chair a Ministerial Round Table on addressing the policy challenges for investment and enterprise development, with Qatar counterpart Mr Mohamed Bin Saleh Al-Sada. The Round Table will allow ministers and heads of international organisations to debate how investment and enterprise development policies can facilitate building productive capacity and integration into global value chains, in support of economic development. Deliberations will serve to guide investment policymaking at the national and international levels, with a view to maximizing sustainable investment, enterprise and development outcomes.
Enquiries:
Sidwell Medupe-Departmental Spokesperson
Cell: 079 492 1774
Tel: 012 394 1650
E-mail: MSMedupe@thedti.gov.za
