Developing countries must make it a priority to adopt a common strategy of integration, while continuing to participate in international trade negotiations, said activists and analysts who met at the second Uruguayan Social Forum.

"We have to negotiate, because trade conducted only among countries of the South would inevitably amount to condemning ourselves to poverty," said economist Juan Manuel Rodrguez, of the Catholic University of Uruguay.

"We must continue doing trade with nations of advanced technology, because that is the only way to improve living standards in our societies."

He was among representatives of 40 local and international non-governmental organisations, trade unions and environmental groups who met from Oct 10-12 at the forum to discuss alternatives to the globalisation process in its current shape and form.

The debates revolved around three themes: identity and culture, global integration, and alternatives for creating 'Another Uruguay'.

The forum was organised by civil society groups that have taken part in the World Social Forum meetings held annually since 2000 in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre, under the slogan 'Another World Is Possible'.

Lesson from the past

Like the inaugural forum last year, this year's event was kicked off by a protest against the creation of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). It was organised by the PIT-CNT central trade union and Federation of University Students of Uruguay.

The forum consisted of about 80 workshops and panels held at the public-funded University of the Republic, with the support of the private Catholic University and the Montevideo city government, which is headed by the leftist Broad Front coalition.

Participants agreed that countries of the South should not act on their own in international trade forums, but must draw together as they did in the new Group of 20 Plus (G20+) bloc at last month's World Trade Organisation (WTO) ministerial meeting in Cancun, Mexico.

"That kind of strategy is what we need in trade negotiations, including the talks for the creation of the FTAA," said Rodrguez, a panelist at a workshop on 'WTO, FTAA and Mercosur: What Kind of Integration Do We Want?'

The G20+ is "...important as an attempt to join forces. But we have to prevent it from merely leading to a stand-off between two groups (developing vs. industrialised nations), with no dialogue, compromises or agreements," he told IPS.

Rodrguez said one of the reasons the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean remain poor is that "they missed out on the benefits of the successive industrial revolutions" of the 19th century.

"A technological revolution is now taking place that they must not miss. We must participate, like it or not, in the sphere of international trade talks," he said.

"We inevitably have to negotiate. We must not be left out of the growth of technology. We have no other alternative."

Rodrguez also said South-South trade would not be sufficient for poor countries to achieve development, and that it is necessary to gain real access to the markets of industrialised nations.

Trade in merchandise between developing nations has reached nearly US$1.6 billion so far this year, compared to a global figure of US$6.2 billion, according to WTO statistics.

Regional blocs

Rodrguez praised the trade strategies of Brazil, which "defends its interests but without isolating itself".

The Brazilian government of left-wing President Luiz Incio Lula Da Silva "is the only one that really has an international trade policy strategy".

"It is seeking to strengthen the region in order to trade with the world. It's a pity that Uruguay isn't joining in that strategy, because it will end up isolated," said Rodrguez.

The G20+, led by Brazil and India, refused to sign an agreement with the rich countries at the Cancun conference because it did not include a commitment to slash US and European Union farm subsidies, which hurt developing nations.

The new bloc of developing countries accounts for more than 20 per cent of global agricultural output, 26 per cent of farm exports and 17 per cent of farm imports.

Foreign ministers and other official delegates from Latin America, Egypt, China, India and South Africa met recently in Buenos Aires in an attempt to consolidate the unity of the G20+, after Colombia, Costa Rica and Peru pulled out. Around half of the members of the bloc - of which Uruguay does not form part - are Latin American nations.

Nelson Fernndez Bracco, who belongs to the Association of Bank Employees of Uruguay and the Mercosur (Southern Common Market) trade bloc's Consultative Economic and Social Forum, stressed the importance of strengthening regional blocs to reinforce the bargaining power of developing countries in negotiations with the industrialised North.

"Integration should be focused on the creation of transnational bodies, complementariness in industry and agriculture, and the development of human resources. Then we will be able to negotiate later in other international forums," he said at the Uruguayan forum.

Fernndez added that, with the new governments in the Mercosur's biggest partners - the Lula administration in Brazil and the centre-left government of Nstor Kirchner in Argentina - the prospects of the bloc (whose junior members are Paraguay and Uruguay) are changing.- IPS