South
Asia Watch on Trade, Economics and Environment (SAWTEE) and Consumer Unity and
Trust Society (CUTS) International jointly organized a panel discussion on “Aid
for Trade: Regional/ Global Value Chains and the Role of Trilateral Development
Cooperation” yesterday. The event was organized at the sidelines of the Fourth
Global Review on Aid for Trade taking place at the WTO Secretariat in Geneva
from 8 to 10 July 2013.
Mr.
Hong Zhu, Deputy Permanent Representative of the Embassy of China in Geneva, suggested
that China could help South Asian countries connect to global value chains by
providing market access as well as technical support. Underscoring the
significance of a Chinese proverb “To get rich you must build the road” China
would be willing to participate in the trilateral cooperation mechanism to
support South Asian countries as it has done to Africa. He also highlighted the
policy of his government to encourage their domestic enterprises to make
commercially viable investments in developing countries.
Dr.
Mohammad Razzaque, Head of Trade and Regional Cooperation Programme of the
Commonwealth Secretariat, London, emphasized the role of services in “trade in
tasks”. According to him, out of the overall global value chain, 66 percent is
retained by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries
and remaining 24 percent is retained by the emerging economics. This leaves
only 10 percent for the least-developed countries (LDCs), small and vulnerable economies
and the rest of Africa, Asia and Latin America. However, with the right kind of
policies and trilateral cooperation, these countries should be able to enhance
their participation in the global value chain, he said.
Dr.
Ratnakar Adhikari, Chief Executive Director of SAWTEE, said, “The factors that
have impeded the prospects of regional trade integration in South Asia are the
same that inhibit the possibility of developing South Asia as the regional
value chain.” Because of this very reason there is a real danger that LDCs in
South Asia can be marginalized from being plugged into regional value chain and
subsequently from participating in the global value chain, he said. Therefore,
it is necessary to utilize trilateral development cooperation – the cooperation
between traditional donor, emerging donor and host countries – based on a clear
division of labour, trade mainstreaming in the development cooperation
framework and resource commitment from the host government.
Summing
up the discussion, the chair of the session, Mr. Pradeep Mehta, Secretary
General of CUTS International said that value chains are one of the key
architectures for facilitating the integration of developing countries and LDCs
into the increasingly complicated global economy. A necessary condition for
successfully accomplishing “trade in tasks” is to coordinate all the
stakeholders including traditional donors, emerging donors, host countries and
above all the private sector. While
domestic policy issues are critical for facilitating the integration of firms
in developing regions, the role of aid for trade, in particular trilateral
development cooperation, is equally important.
A
total of 30 participants representing government, inter-governmental
organizations, private sector and civil society organizations participated at
the panel discussion.
