Africa, Latin America pledged to contribute to Doha Cycle conclusion

    According to the final declaration, issued at the end of the first conference of trade ministers from Africa and Latin America, the two regions have agreed to improve and harmonize their positions within the World Trade Organization (WTO) on issues that are of major interest for them, in order to strongly support a fair and equitable multilateral trade system, capable of meeting the challenges of development in the South.

    In "the Marrakech Declaration", the two regions called for an urgent operationalization of Aid for Trade initiative and urged the international community to ensure greater coherence at the national, regional and global levels with regard to this initiative.

    The ministers also called for substantially increasing financial aids granted to countries in Africa and South America and for greater coordination with international financial institutions and regional development banks.

    They underlined the need to encourage the international community to take into account the growing concerns of countries in Africa and South America regarding the recent rise in raw materials prices on the international market.

    Officials urged businessmen from both regions to hold a biannual forum, in parallel with the Ministerial conference, and participate in trade fairs, stressing the need to support efforts of both regions’ countries to improve the business environment in order to attract domestic investment and long-term foreign direct investment.

    The conference mandated Morocco to present the Marrakech Declaration and Action Plan to WTO and UNCTAD, as well as various competent regional and international forums, and make a presentation on the Marrakech meeting at the 2nd Africa South America Summit, slated for November 29-30 in Caracas.

    Africa and South America also called on UNCTAD to implement the Accra Agreement objectives and pledged to further exploit the Global System of Trade Preferences among Developing Countries (GSTP).

    The first conference of trade ministers from Africa and South America was held on June 17-19 in Marrakech, with the participation of 65 countries, including some thirty countries represented by their Trade ministers.

MAP