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The world economy has over the past two decades witnessed an unprecedented growth of developing countries with their share in both global output and trade doubling to almost 40%. As the merchandise exports from developing countries swelled from $850 billion to $6 trillion, trade between developing countries grew at a much faster pace: 16% per annum during the past decade as against of world trade growth rate of just about 6%. The impressive growth and trade performance of such economies as Brazil, China, India, Russia and South Africa has widely been recognized as the defining feature of the emerging South with important implications for Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). In this backdrop, this session is to take stock of the nature of and major trends in SSA’s participation in South-South trade. The working session will also discuss opportunities for building South-South supply chains and other policy issues in promoting SSA’s export diversification and structural transformation.

Speakers

• Christopher Onyanga Aparr, Ambassador & Permanent Representative of the Republic of Uganda to the WTO
• François-Xavier Ngarambe, Ambassador & Permanent Representative of the Republic of Rwanda to the WTO
• Richard Kozul Wright, Director, Division on Globalisation and Strategy, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)
• Mohammad A. Razzaque, Adviser & Head, International Trade Policy, Commonwealth Secretariat