The BRICS countries urgently need to trade more with each other rather than with the rest of the world. This was the view of the participants of the Second Employment Working Group (EWG) in Port-Afreda on Wednesday, 10 May, as reported by the South African government's official website.
Jens Deering Christensen, senior specialist in enterprise development and management at the International Labour Organisation (ILO), gave a presentation on "BRICS productivity ecosystems". He stated that there is a need to expand trade between the countries of the group.
Christensen mentioned that the ILO is ready to provide technical support to achieve this goal. The focus will be on how a particular productivity ecosystem will be implemented in each member country of the association.
"We know that there is no universal solution. The answer could be to ask the ILO to set up a group of technical experts based in each country to support implementation. We may even suggest setting up a full-fledged BRICS expert group in five countries," he revealed.
"If the BRICS countries trade more with each other, it would contribute to the economic growth of the bloc members. They could do this by identifying mutual interests within their countries, for example in beef production," he stressed.
Siyabonga Hadebe, South Africa's labour attaché in Geneva, said the time had come for the BRICS member states to work as one bloc to achieve their common goals of accelerating economic growth and thereby changing the geopolitical landscape.
Professor Ronney Ncwadi, Director in the School of Economics, Development and Tourism at Nelson Mandela University, said: "If we want to create effective models for our youth, we must go beyond theory and talk about the factors of production. We must integrate entrepreneurship into our social values".
BRICS is an inter-governmental grouping of five countries: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. It was established in 2006 at the initiative of Russia at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF). South Africa joined in 2010.
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