Zambia hosted the third conference of heads of states of nonaligned countries more than 50 years ago, in 1970. The world was a different place, in some respects, of course. In others it has remained unchanged. Of the now Brics member countries two were present, as observers or delegates — Brazil as an observer and India as a member country.
The declaration from that conference could have been written today: “... barriers divide countries into developed and the developing, oppressors and the oppressed, the aggressors and the victims of aggression, into those who act from positions of strength, either military or economic and those who are forced to live in the shadow of permanent danger of covert and overt assaults on their independence and security ...”
This partitioning of the world into those living in luxury and those in the shadow of the threat of permanent danger and hunger remains true of the contemporary global order. The language of “nonalignment” in such a global order, rather than presenting a grey neutrality, is a positive assertion of the principle of settling disputes by peaceful means, and the pursuit of “economic independence and mutual co-operation on the basis of equality and mutual benefit”, as the Lusaka declaration affirmed.
As the Brics member states descend on our country over the next few days we may wish to remember the Lusaka declaration, not in the warm and cosy sentimentalism of South-South relations, but also in the concrete economic relations sought between country and country in the carving of trade and other rules; or in firm-to-firm relations in the marketplace.
National interest
For instance, if one considers exports from SA’s main industrial sectors that have experienced growth in the post global financial crisis period, in food and beverages and agro-processing interesting trends indicate the degree to which our national interest is best served by a deepening of multilateralism and mutual co-operation, rather than a retreat towards “friend-shoring”, green protectionism and a repartitioning of the world.
Of the exporters that make use of industrial policy instruments such as duty rebates and drawbacks on imported input material used for exported final products, there are signs of diversification of export destinations. It is not solely exports headed to Europe, though these dominate. It also includes exports to other destinations in Asia and Latin America, where some of the original equipment manufacturers, as “lead firms”, may have production operations in the geographically decentralised production found in these global auto value chains.
If we consider agro-processing exports, while some firms may claim duty rebates for a similar range of exported products, the level of penetration into different markets is uneven. Some firms remain integrated into their European, Asian and Australasian markets, while others have kept these, and alongside them shown growth of exports into Africa.
The spatial distribution of drawback permits mirrors the predominance of Gauteng and the Western Cape in manufactured exports, with over a third being issued in Gauteng. Just under a fifth are issued to firms in the Eastern Cape, mainly for automotive components and parts.
While these are but two instruments enabling manufactured exports, they do signal the important link between foreign policy and strategies focused on structural change, as shift from low value, low productivity economic activities to higher value higher productivity activities in the global matrix of production.
The growing call for the reform of global multilateral institutions, the expanding of policy space for developing countries and, within Brics, a commitment to shifting the composition of two-way manufactured trade within the collective, is made within this frame. Without a reaffirmation of this, the benefits of co-operation and “the epoch-making scientific and technological revolution” the Lusaka declaration observed more than half a century ago, may fail to better distribute the gains of multilateralism while placing many at risk of assault on their independence and security — through economic and “other” means.
• Cawe is chief commissioner at the International Trade Administration Commission. He writes in his personal capacity.
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