Track 2 initiative among BRICS countries
launched in Shanghai
November 19, 2011, Jaipur
“BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and
South Africa) group of countries has a special significance in the
emerging global economic order and they are set of reshape the
economic, trade and political future of the world,” said Wang Xinkui,
President of the Shanghai WTO Consultation Center.
He was speaking on the occasion of the
launch of BRICS Trade & Economics Research Network (BRICS-TERN) in
Shanghai on Saturday, the 19th of November 2011. Gong Baihua,
Associate President of SCCWTO welcomed the participants to this
meeting.
Drawing from the Sanya Declaration of
BRICS Leaders Summit which was held in April 2011, five reputed
policy research organisations came together to form this Track 2
initiative which will work on a range of issues on emerging global
economic challenges and South-South cooperation.
They are Fundacao Getulio Vargas from
Brazil, EcoAccord from Russia, CUTS International from India,
Shanghai WTO Consultation Center from China, and South African
Institute of International Affairs.
Speaking on the occasion, Pradeep Mehta,
Secretary General of CUTS International said that in order to
understand whether preferential trade agreements are building or
stumbling blocks to multilateralism one needs to do deeper analysis
of such agreements with which BRICS countries are engaged with and
see the possibilities of multilateralising regional initiatives.
Shun Zhenyu, former Ambassador of China
to the World Trade Organisation and Chairperson of the Standing
Council of BRICS-TERN said that the initiative would like to upfront
the relevance of the multilateral trading system. It would work on
how to approach new issues and more common positions, he added.
At this launch meeting, the network
members presented the respective country’s approach towards
preferential trade agreements and lessons to be drawn so as to take
forward bilateral integration to deeper regional integration to
larger issues of South-South cooperation.
Reacting to them, Faizel Ismail,
Ambassador of South Africa to the WTO said that we have to recognise
the role of trade in a country’s development, particularly in
industrial capacity. “Different set of values are embedded into
trade agreements; those lessons from like-minded countries should
shared to draw conclusions for mainstreaming trade into
development.”
G. K. Pillai, former Commerce Secretary
of India and Chief Adviser to the Standing Council of BRICS-TERN
reminded the group why the Doha Development Round of negotiations
among the WTO members is not progressing toward its conclusion.
“Drawing lessons from the Uruguay Round Agreement, developing
countries got together to discuss development deficits in trade
agreements and that has changed the dynamics of negotiations,” he
said. He urged the group to conduct a structured campaign on
characteristics of emerging economies and challenges therein.
Vera Thorstensen, Head of the Center on
Global Trade of FGV, Brazil focused her presentation on rule-making
process in preferential trade agreements, particularly in
negotiating WTO plus rules. She said that the initiative should
create an observatory on preferential trade agreements which will
help the BRICS group to develop a new model to be different from
either US or European Union models.
According to Olga Ponizova, Executive
Director of EcoAccord, Russia is witnessing a period of deep
transformation and the role of trade in sustainable development is
emerging as a major issue. Initiatives like BRICS-TERN will help
Russia in implementing its commitments as a newly acceded member of
the World Trade Organisation. After more than a decade of
negotiation, WTO Members will formally include Russia into the group
at the forthcoming Ministerial Conference to be held in Geneva in
December this year.
Bipul Chatterjee, Deputy Executive
Director of CUTS International presented the lessons that India can
draw from its engagements with preferential trade negotiations and
the kind of work that BRICS-TERN can do in future. One of them is to
look at the process of trade policy-making in respective countries
and stakeholders’ involvement.
According to Feng Jun, Associate
President of SCCWTO, China is putting equal emphasis on multilateral
and bilateral cooperation. More than 19 percent of China’s trade is
on account of preferential trade agreements. China considers the
trans-pacific partnership initiative as one of its biggest
challenges in future which will determine its trade relationship
with the US.
Catherine Grant, Project and Programme
Head of SAIIA’s Economic Diplomacy Programme explained how the South
African government is developing a new model of preferential trade
agreements with developing countries through extensive consultations
with interest groups including community-based organisations. South
Africa negotiated the Uruguay Round as a developed country and the
situation has changed significantly. She underlined that other BRICS
countries should learn from China’s success in using trade policy as
a tool of industrial policy.
The next BRICS Leaders Summit will be
held in New Delhi in March 2011. BRICS-TERN will meet before this
Summit and present a set of recommendations on emerging issues of
global economic governance and the role of BRICS countries. The
group has also listed a set of issues on which its members will
conduct policy research and advocacy in future. Capacity constraints
among diverse set of stakeholders in understanding the role of trade
in development also emerged as a major future areas of work of the
group.
For more information, please contact:
Bipul Chatterjee, + 91 98292 85921,
bc@cuts.org
Kshitiz Sharma, + 91 98288 89991,
ks@cuts.org
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