Date: 04/10/2004
Source: Department of Trade and Industry
Title: Minister Mpahlwa: Speech at the launch of Export Africa 2005 (04/11/2004)


SPEECH BY MINISTER MPAHLWA AT THE OCCASION OF THE LAUNCH OF EXPORT AFRICA 2005

Programme Director
Honoured guests,
Distinguished members of the diplomatic corps,
Business people, exporters, financiers,
Members of the media,
Ladies and gentlemen,

The New Partnership for Africa’s Development is based on the reality that we must eradicate poverty, enable sustainable growth and development, halt marginilisation in the globalisation process and enhance Africa’s full and beneficial integration into the global economy. We cannot afford to fail. The consequences of failure would be too ghastly.

Economic development forms the cornerstone of NEPAD. The programme acknowledges that African countries have to pool their resources and enhance regional development and economic integration if their economies are to grow in a manner that creates jobs and reduces poverty. In this regard we have to confront a host of challenges: Many African economies are relatively small or have low consumer purchasing power. The current levels of intra-Africa trade are far from ideal. The trade balance within sub-regions is skewed and trade between sub-regions is low.

Furthermore, there remain a number of constraints to Africa’s integration in the global economy. African exports have been handicapped by country practices such as tariff escalation, tariff peaks and agricultural protectionism and our share of global trade has been declining steadily over the past few decades. These facts are not an excuse for despair and should not give way to pessimism on our part. On the contrary the constraints represent the most exciting opportunities and challenges of the new millennium.

Already we have begun to halt this slide. The essential elements for ensuring that Africa becomes a major contender in the global trade arena are already in place: