The sixth World Trade Organisation ministerial conference will run from Tuesday to Sunday next week.
The event will see NGOs and campaigners from humanitarian and faith groups from around the globe converging on Hong Kong in a bid to pressure governments from the world’s wealthiest nations to take action in the name of trade justice.
Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane, successor to acclaimed Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu, said that behind the complex economics and technical jargon lay decisions that would have a significant effect on everyone on the planet, reports Ekklesia.
“We believe that trade has the potential to contribute to development in the weaker countries,” he said, warning that failing to reform the current trade system would push developing countries “deeper into poverty”.The Archbishop added that if Africa increased its share in world exports by just one per cent, then this would generate around 70 billion dollars in income, “roughly five times what the entire continent receives in aid,” he said.
Ndungane urged local and other African government representatives in Hong Kong not to back down “on their agreed positions on the development rights and needs of their people”.
General secretary of the Western Cape wing of COSATU also called upon the South African government to work with other developing countries to ensure that the terms of trade were changed “and that the discussions rather focus on what needs to be done to promote sustainable development in a rapidly globalising world”
