Davies: unity’s what binds us

The Brics member states – Brazil, Russia, India, China, SA –should strengthen their ties to mitigate the impact of turmoil in the global trading system, Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies said yesterday.

A global trading war is brewing between the US and countries such as China, Canada, Mexico, and the European Union over tariffs which could have dire implications for the global economy.

“We are living at a time of enormous turbulence in the global trading system and indeed a moment of crisis for the global multilateral trading system,” Davies told the Brics business forum in Johannesburg marking the start of the group’s 10th summit.

“I think what is clear to all of us is that this is a moment when we need to strengthen and deepen the partnership between our countries.”

He said South Africa, like other developing countries, had become “collateral damage” in the US-led trading war, with Washington imposing tariffs on local steel producers, despite their accounting for less than 1% in sales of the alloy.

“We are not party to the trading wars but many of us have been affected by the measures,” Davies told journalists. “We’re very much noncombatants in this. Noncombatant collateral damage is where we find outselves.”

The minister noted that Brics had recently been a “disproportional source of global economic growth” and that the International Monetary Fund was predicting that the five-member union would over the next five years be responsible for more global economic growth than the group of seven (G-7) of developed states.