No+to+NAMA,+NEDLAC+Community+Constituency



=NEDLAC COMMUNITY CONSTITUENCY= Overall Convenor Sizwe Shezi First Floor East Wing 185 Auckland House 2196 Tel: 011 403 6392 Fax: 011 403 828 Email: **sira@absamail.co.za**
 * SAYC- FSCC- WNC- DPSA- NCASA- SANCO
 * SAYC- FSCC- WNC- DPSA- NCASA- SANCO

Constituency Coordinator Nedlac Building 14a Jellicoe Avenue Rosebank, Braamfontein Tel : 011 328 4215 Fax: 447 2089 Email: **ibrahim@nedlac.org.za**


 * __PRESS RELEASE: TO ALL EDITORS__**


 * 04 May 2006**


 * __Subject:__**


 * The NAMA negotiations in the WTO: a further threat to jobs and future industrial development in South Africa**

At a meeting of community-based organisations under the auspices of the Community Constituency in NEDLAC, held in Gauteng on 24-25 April, it was agreed to express support for the COSATU national protest action planned for the 9th of May, 2006, in opposition to the current proposed agreement on the Non-Agricultural Market Access (NAMA) negotiations in the WTO.

This agreement is fundamentally aimed at further and extensive tariff liberalisation in all countries throughout the world and threatens devastating consequences for the development imperatives of developing countries. As such, this agreement is blatantly contradicting the promise that the current Doha round of WTO talks would be a ‘development round’.

The majors are demanding a preposterous trade-off from developing countries. In return for possible increased access to the markets of developed countries for agricultural products developing countries will have to give the developed countries significant market access particularly in industrial products and in services.

The cumulative effect of this trade-off on local manufacturing will be disastrous. The proposed extensive tariff cuts would undermine our labour-intensive sectors such as clothing, textile, footwear and leather, tyres, paper, plastic, furniture, jewellery, building and agricultural materials, etc. These sectors offer huge potential for massive employment creation and could therefore contribute towards improving the living standards of workers and working class communities.

This agreement would entrench South Africa as an exporter of primary mineral and agricultural goods and seriously restrict our opportunities to develop manufacturing and more advanced industries and diversify our economy. South Africa’s minerals-based economy has always been and continues to be largely capital-intensive. This basically resource-based economy; overlaid by apartheid policies, has resulted in widespread poverty, inequality and unemployment existing alongside a few globally competitive industries.

The current negotiations in the WTO reflect and reinforce the long-term objective of the highly industrialised countries, particularly the European Union and the United States, to radically reduce tariffs in all other countries, as a first step towards a generalised free trade in all their products. If achieved, the aims being pursued through NAMA would (together with the General Agreement on Trade in Services) would herald the radical achievement of the global neo-liberal agenda launched during the Uruguay Round (1986 – 1994) of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. Together with COSATU, we say NO TO NAMA ___

Ibrahim Steyn (Research and Policy Coordination)

NEDLAC Community Constituency 14 A Jellicoe Avenue Rosebank

P.O. Box 1775 Saxonwold 2132

Tel: 011 328 4215 Fax: 011 447 2089 E-Mail: **ibrahim@nedlac.org.za**

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