EMERGING economies of the world like
India, Brazil and China have changed the landscape of international trade. WTO
Director General Pascal Lamy said that they are no longer policy takers but have
become significant drivers influencing the pattern and scope of international
trade.
These
emerging powers China, India, Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, Malaysia,
South Africa and many others are no longer policy takers. These countries now
increasingly influence the pattern and scope of international trade, creating
new supply and demand pulls and flexing their influence in international
organizations.
He
emphasised that this is no longer the world of the twentieth century dominated
by the US pillar on one side and the European pillar on the other. We are in a
twenty-first century multi-polar world. Emergence of some developing countries
as key players and as "real contributors" to global dialogue on trade and
economics is a fundamental feature of this new geo-political reality. The global
network of imports and exports is no longer just the North-South paradigm of the
past century. Increasingly developing countries are seen as producers and as
markets for each other and this is one of the growing patterns of the new
landscape of trade. In the past 20 years, merchandise trade between developing
countries has expanded much faster than the North-South trade.
A recent
report by UNCTAD notes that in 2010 South-South exports made up 23 per cent of
world trade compared to just 13 per cent in 2000.Developing countries are now
the largest market for other developing countries. While this is encouraging,
the contribution of developing regions to South-South trade is highly skewed.
Asian countries make up more than 80 per cent of South-South trade, with the
shares of Africa and Latin America being just 6 per cent and 10 per cent
respectively in 2010.
Lamy said that economic ties between Africa and
China and Africa and India are growing considerably."Trade between China and
Africa will likely hit upwards of $ 200 billion in 2012, up 25 per cent year on
year. If this trend continues, reports are that Africa could surpass the EU and
the US to become China's largest trade partner in three to five years," he
added.
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