BRICS to fight trade protectionism

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BRICS 2018 LOGOJohannesburg, July 26 : Leaders of five major emerging economies — Brazil, Russia, India and China and South Africa — vowed to to fight unilateralism and protectionism in global trade and voiced their support for an open and inclusive multilateral trading system as envisaged by the World Trade Organisation.
“We recognise that the multilateral trading system is facing unprecedented challenges. We underscore the importance of an open world economy,” the leaders said in a declaration on Thursday.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, earlier presenting the Country Statement at the leaders’ Closed Session, reaffirmed India’s commitment to multilateralism, international trade and rules-based world order.
“We are concerned by the rise in unilateral measures that are incompatible with World Trade Organization rules and are worried about the impact of these measures, especially on developing countries,” said President Cyril Ramaphosa of summit host South Africa, in a clear reference to tariff imposed by the US.
Chinese President Xi Jinping said the world is faced with “a choice between confrontation and co-operation, we are at a crossroad.”
“Trade wars should be rejected. Economy hegemony should be rejected. Those who pursue that will only hurt themselves. As BRICS, we should be resolute in rejecting unilateralism and protectionism,” he said, addressing the BRICS Business Forum on Wednesday.
Xi called on the developing world to rise against US protectionism, warning that the tariffs that the world’s biggest economy had imposed on imports would have far-reaching implications for emerging nations and markets.
Ramaphosa said that Brics countries were increasingly recognised as an influential formation in reinforcing the principles of transparency, inclusiveness and compatibility within the multilateral trading system.
“Intra-Brics co-operation has been gaining momentum in areas such as finance, agriculture, trade, combating transnational crime, science and technology, health, education, security and academic dialogue.”
Ramaphosa also said that there is much scope to expand the value of trade between Brics countries, which also need to increase investment between Brics countries, particularly in the productive sectors of our economy.
Equally important is BRICS-Africa cooperation, he said. “There is great potential for investment in Africa. In the past decade Africa has grown at a rate of 2 to 3 percentage points faster than the global GDP, with regional growth predicted to remain stable above 5% in 2018. This growth will be supported by increasing foreign direct investment flows, public investment in infrastructure and higher agricultural production.”
He also said that the agreement to establish the African Continental Free Trade Area, which provides access to a market of more than one billion people and a combined GDP of more than $3 trillion, presented opportunities for BRICS countries, some of whom had extensive experience in infrastructure development and were leaders in education and skills development.
Ramaphosa also said that following a proposal by Russian President Vladimir Putin, the five leaders have agreed to deepen a “people to people” component.
“We should have a Brics sports process in a number of sporting codes,” says Ramaphosa, saying that the popularity of sports that each country specialises in can spread between the different countries.
The details of the sport and cultural meetings, he said, would be ironed out.



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