Talks will destroy SA industries

Cape Town - SA is being asked to sacrifice its industrial growth at the Word Trade Organisation Doha round of talks, which have resumed in Geneva Switzerland. According to Ebrahim Patel of the Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu) who is at the talks, "SA is offered very little on agriculture, but we are asked to sacrifice our manufacturing sector."

He said the discussions involved liberalisation in three sectors: industrial products, agriculture and services. The industrial product liberalisation talks are described as Non-Agricultural Market Access, and this has been a main focus for SA.

"The proposals we are expected to consider will result in a massive tariff reduction on most industrial products, from automobiles to clothing and plastic goods. Tariffs are expected to go down from a bound rate of 45% in some instances to about 16%, and this will result in thousands of job losses and the closure of many factories over the decade ahead," Patel said.

He said that in the previous round of trade talks, SA was classified as a developed country and was asked to make big cuts to industrial protection. "This has cost us hundreds of thousands of jobs and has sharpened the problems of poverty and unemployment," Patel said.

Job losses

"We are still paying the price as a country through this historic injustice. Our electronics sector has been decimated, clothing and textiles has lost 150 000 jobs and imports are pouring in on a range of manufactured products, from sweets to furniture.

"We cannot afford another damaging round of tariff cuts with the further painful costs to employment and social stability."

The trade talks which resumed this week are regarded universally as a last chance to salvage the Doha round (called a 'development round' because it is hoped to bring advantage to developing countries) before it is too late and the negotiations have to be held in abeyance for as much as three or four years.

Patel, who is general secretary of the Southern African Clothing and Textile Workers' Union and labour convenor at Nedlac, is also a member of the governing body of the International Labour Organisation.

He said that the tariff cuts being demanded by the developed countries will also do serious damage to the economies of our neighbours Lesotho, Swaziland, Namibia and Botswana.

"What is at stake is the very future of manufacturing on the African continent," Patel said. "If passed in their current form, we will lose our industrial base and become simply a supplier of raw materials to the factories of Asia and Europe and a destination for tourism.

"Our domestic debates on policy choices will be rendered irrelevant if we are trapped in commitments that are poorly designed and damaging to the interest of our country. With the highest unemployment rate in the world of any medium-sized country (those with a population in excess of 40 million), we have no space to make concessions that will destroy jobs."

- I-Net Bridge