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United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (Unido) director general Kandeh K Yumkella, in his discussions with commerce and industry minister Kamal Nath, decided to set up a South-South Cooperation Centre in India for dissemination of technological know-how and best practices among developing countries. The centre will have links with Brazil, Russia, China and Japan and will also draw on their experiences.

Speaking to FE, Dr Yumkella said it had been decided to set up a cooperation centre in India as the country has a lot of know-how in trade capacity building, new technology and SME development. Later, in an interactive meeting organised by Ficci, he said the centre in India would reach out to the developing world the experience of India and four other identified countries in spreading the benefits of industrial development to the poor.

“It is sad to see the absence of focus on industrial competitive strategies in the global development debate today, something which is essential to raise productive capacities and ensure that the benefits of growth trickles down to the grassroots level,” he said.

Dr Yumkella told FE the centre would have experts from the identified countries and would not have a heavy bureaucratic framework. “The idea behind the centre is to move beyond conferences and do something more substantial. However, we have to keep our costs low,” he said.

The Unido chief believes that poverty cannot be eradicated without creating wealth. “This wealth must be created through SMEs, developing supply chains and linakage to the local level,” he said and added that it was imperative to develop a dynamic private industrial sector, particularly SMEs, through an employment and income generating strategy linked to poor people and to disadvantaged groups in rural and backward regions.

This, Dr Yumkella said, would require incentives and a package of measures to establish pro- poor growth strategies, promote labour-intensive technologies and products, support trade capacity building, raise productivity, support informal sector entrepreneurs, produce essential consumer products at a low price for increasing the real incomes of the poor and strengthen all agro-industrial input and processing linkages.

Source: The Financial ExpressMore