Pretoria - South African Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies and Deputy Minister Bulelani Magwanishe have arrived in Marrakesh, Morocco to attend the World Trade Organisation (WTO) informal ministerial gathering, the trade and industry department (dti) said.
The meeting, hosted by Morocco, was part of a series of preparatory meetings leading to the 11th WTO ministerial conference (MC11) in Buenos Aires, Argentina in December, the dti said in a statement.
The meeting would provide a platform for exchanging views and guidance on possible outcomes at the MC11. This meeting followed the informal Africa ministers of trade meeting jointly hosted by South Africa and the African Union Commission (AUC) on September 18 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
"The ministers reiterated their commitment to the development mandate of the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) and agreed that Africa should seek outcomes that provide policy space for Africa to pursue integration and industrialisation to drive the process of structural transformation across the African continent.
"The ministers also agreed on the need to ensure that the outcomes achieved at the multilateral level do not undermine the continent’s development integration agenda that encompasses market integration, industrial development, and infrastructure development," the dti said.
On the sidelines of the WTO informal ministerial gathering, Davies and Magwanishe would also hold several bilateral meetings and a meeting of the African ministers of trade attending the gathering.