BRICS expected to focus on Africa(3)

Rob Davies, South Africa's Minister for Trade and Industry, sees BRICS interest in Africa as an opportunity that the continent should use for industrialization. BRICS countries present chance for Africa to adopt technologies that have been tested and used in other countries to facilitate industrialization.

As a basic start, he said, the continent must start large scale value addition of its agriculture produce, minerals and manufacture of pharmaceuticals.

"The other BRICS countries have an advantage of industrialization because they have large domestic markets. Economic integration efforts in Africa will also afford us that large market," he said.

He expressed optimism that the ongoing efforts for a grand free trade area encompassing the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the East Africa Community (EAC) and the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) are expected to be completed by mid-2014 to create a market for 600 million people.

"We have an opportunity to create that critical mass that can drive our industrialization," he said. "From BRICS, we seek a partnership to strengthen productive opportunities in Africa."

Africa sees BRICS as an opportunity to diversify its markets and sources of financing from the West and the West-controlled financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Donald Kaberuka, the President of the Africa Development Bank, said BRICS represents a changing world, as gravity and power gradually shift from the North to the South, and from the West to the East.

"The relationship between Africa and the BRICS has grown dramatically, with trade levels increasing ten-fold in ten years, to a value of some 340 billion dollars a year. And Africa itself is the lynchpin of the trade triangle with Asia and South America. Africa-China trade last year was 20 times what it had been at the turn of the century," said Kaberuka in a statement.

"The BRICS countries are already part of the African infrastructure solution. We see this in everything from Brazilian road and rail investment through Vale in Mozambique, to Indian telecommunications investment through Bharti Airtel in Chad, to Chinese investment through its Railway Engineering Cooperation Group and Sinohydro in road, rail and health infrastructure in the DRC. We could say the same many times over, with different examples in different countries," he added.

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