Two reports issued respectively by a major United Nations trade conference and the International Monetary Fund show that to boost South-South cooperation and explore new models for cooperation will not only bring opportunities to the developing countries, but open a new space for the growth of world economy as well.
The ongoing United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) is held at a time when global economy has been going through troublesome times, such as the sub-prime crisis in the United States, the soaring food and oil prices worldwide, and the mounting global inflation.
How could the developing countries deal with those issues dominate the conference agenda and the two published reports may have shed light on the discussion of the issues.
According to the IMF report, the U.S. sub-prime crisis and the slowdown of its economy have not had much impact on most newly emerging economies.
In 2007, some countries such as China, India, Russia and Brazil have outperformed the United States, Japan and Europe and contributed more to world economic growth, becoming the main driving forces of world economic development.
Analysts believe that the growing South-South economic and trade cooperation has led to closer economic ties among the developing countries and reduced their dependence on the U.S. market.
As showed by the UNCTAD report, during the 1996-2006 period, trade volume fuelled by South-South cooperation has tripled, reaching 2 trillion U.S. dollars.
Asia's products entered the African markets, making cheap but durable products available and affordable to many Africans for the first time.
From 1995 to 2005, African countries have also exported more raw materials to Asia. Africa's trade volume with other developing countries raised four-fold during this period.
The IMF report also indicates that the shares of developing countries in global economy are constantly growing while their dependence on markets in developed countries is reducing.
