Better preparing Developining countries now for the current round of agrculture negotiations: this TRALAC aims to help the participants identify what is at stake for them in the current Round of WTO agriculture negotiations and to allow them to return to their capitals with a clear understanding of what their countries need to do in order to more effectively pursue their national interests in the negotiations which will hopefully culminate in a Doha Agreement on Trade in Agriculture.

The South African Government is currently preparing its approach to the 5th Ministerial Conference in Cancun Mexico. As part of the preparations, the Government is convening a National Consultative Conference, so that interested parties can participate in informing the development of South Africa's approach to the meeting in Mexico.
You are kindly invited to attend - or to nominate a delegate - to attend the National Consultative Conference. The Conference is being hosted by the Department of Trade and Industry (the dti) and will be held on 19 - 20 August 2003 at Gallagher Estates, Midrand. The Conference will discuss the overall state of play in the WTO negotiations and each of the negotiating areas.

The use of economic modelling techniques that capture economy-wide impacts of policy changes is growing in the South African academic, consulting and research circles. To cater for this increased demand, the School of Economics at the University of Cape Town in conjunction with International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) are hosting a two week intensive computable general equilibrium (CGE) modelling course in Cape Town. between 30 June and 11 July 2003. As in previous years, the course is open to suitable candidates from outside of the University of Cape Town.

The SATRN Symposium will be attended by Senior Policy-Makers, Officials from SADC Secretariat, Geneva based Ambassadors, Brussels based Ambassadors, and SATRN Researchers

The objective of the meeting was to review progress made on the Doha Work program and identify key areas of agreement and disagreement in the different proposals submitted by member states and ways in which progress can be made in areas of disagreement.
Participants to the meeting iincluded SADC's Geneva and capital based negotiators, regional trade experts and international trade experts from the World Bank, UNCTAD, WTO, and FAO.

This was a brief brainstorming workshop on research methodolgy issues with regards to the motor industry development program.

The annual forum serves as a platform for researchers, policy-makers and other stakeholders to discuss ongoing research and to enter into dialogue on policy-relevant issues resulting from research.

TIPS hosted its seventh annual forum in September 2003 together with the Development Policy Research Unit (DPRU).
This year's forum focussed on South Africa's progress in addressing growth and poverty since democracy and the challenges it still faces in these areas. Key themes included:

• Explaining low economic growth in South Africa in the last decade.
• The changing structure of the South African economy and microeconomic reform.
• Sectors as engines of growth and employment in the last decade.
• Poverty, labour markets and income inequality in the post-aparthed period.
• Privatisation, regulation and competition.

Various prominent South African government figures and academics, as well as international speakers, participated in the Forum, including South African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel, David Kaplan of UCT, Erik Thorbecke of Cornell University, the University of Toronto's Albert Berry and Rohinton Medhora of the IDRC.

See Annual Forum papers

TIPS is organizing a short course on the Economics of the Environment in Cape Town from the 5th to the 9th of May 2003
The Course will be taught by Myrick Freeman.

The use of economic modelling techniques that capture economy-wide impacts of policy changes is growing in the South African academic, consulting and research circles.
To cater for this increased demand, the School of Economics at the University of Cape Town in conjunction with the Trade and Industrial Policy Strategies (TIPS) are offered a one week introductory course in economy-wide policy impact analysis .

TIPS is organised a one day workshop to present the findings of two case studies done by various researchers on Energy Services and Tourism. These sectors are in different ways, of critical importance to the South African Economy. They are also important to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) services negotiations.