Cosatu pours cold water on SA in Brics

Johannesburg - Trade union federation Cosatu said on Friday it had reservations and concerns about the potential gains from South Africa's membership of the Brics group of emerging markets.

The other members are Brazil, Russia, India and China.

"Brics is made up of emerging economies with sizeable populations, very high growth rates and stronger manufacturing and industrial capacities than our own.

"That on its own is not the problem, but the issue is that experience has taught us what that has a potential to do, in for example the case of the South African textile industry and Chinese companies."

Cosatu said a cost-benefit analysis and the prevailing balance of payments seemed to suggest possible dangers "unless we take all necessary steps to mitigate them now".

The union federation said SA needed to further clarify its agenda and guard against such realities and their effects on workers, their families and the country in general.

Cosatu welcomed the fact, however, that joining Brics presented SA with a chance to have a counter-weight in international relations "to the unfettered hegemony and dominance of the US and the European Union".

It added that it had seen the "dangers" of their unlimited powers in the United Nations, International Monetary Fund, World Bank and the World Trade Organisation.

"We need to clarify how the rest of the continent stands to benefit from such an arrangement, if we are to avoid isolating ourselves from the continent and its people, but also to continue an agenda that reflects the urgency of developing our continent and its people."