By Bayano Valy – SANF 04 no 48
MAPUTO, 3 June 2004 – A leading economist with the World Economic Forum has called on African leaders to unite in condemning unfair trade practices that the developed world uses in dealing with the continent.
Speaking at the ongoing Africa Economic Summit in Maputo, Mozambique, Augusto Lopez-Carlos urged leaders to push their Western counterparts to eliminate subsidies that they give to their farmers and businesspeople. He was contributing to a discussion on the findings of an African report on competitiveness launched at the summit.
Africans and the rest of the developing world have used various negotiation fora to denounce unfair practices by the West because they hurt prospects of growth in the developing world, and even impoverish potentially prosperous countries.
Peter McKerchar, a South African businessperson, said that the West is hypocritical when dealing with the developing world. “We are blocked at things we do well, and that way we can hardly prosper,” he said. He said since the West talks about globalisation it too should globalise its agriculture sector, and not expect only the Africans do so.
Lopez-Carlos added that Africans should combine their calls with the creation of a good and coherent policy which clearly leads to macro economic stability and covers a broad range of areas, thus ensuring that any inconsistencies are avoided. “Policy coherence is very important,” he said.
Another economist said that the vocal civil society in the West needed to do more if subsidies were to be removed. Xavier Sala-I-Martin, said that although public opinion is strong in Europe for the dropping of subsidies, at the end of the day what matters for the politicians there are the pressure groups.
He said it is these pressure groups rather than the general public that politicians tend to listen to more. But that does not mean that Africans should sit back and do nothing about it. Every avenue should be pursued to reverse the current trend, he said.
Speaking during a discussion panel on Trade in Africa, Mozambican Minister of Industry and Trade, Carlos Morgado, said that Africans should get the dialogue with the West going and have their positions taken on board in the development agenda.
Although agreeing that Africa needs to open up its market to trade, Morgado said that caution should be taken to ensure that fledgling economies would not be thrown years back and remain ever dependent on the West.
Other participants called on African governments to focus on building infrastructure such as roads and bridges, and also to open more air connections between their countries to facilitate the movement of people.
A Mauritian businessperson said that African countries are sending a wrong signal to investors by not providing enough connecting flights from one African city to another, while there is no shortage of flights to overseas destinations.
The African Economic Summit, a brainchild of the World Economic Forum, which opened on Wednesday in the Mozambican capital Maputo brings together political, business and civil society leaders, and the forum is focusing on a number of development challenges confronting Africa. (SARDC)
