TRADE AND DEVELOPMENT BOARD CREATES THREE NEW COMMISSIONS FOLLOWING DECISION BY UNCTAD IX

Press Release
TAD/1833

TRADE AND DEVELOPMENT BOARD CREATES THREE NEW COMMISSIONS FOLLOWING DECISION BY UNCTAD IX

GENEVA, 8 July (UNCTAD) -- Meeting formally for the first time since the ninth session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD IX), held in South Africa in May, the Trade and Development Board, UNCTAD's executive body, today established three subsidiary commissions and agreed on the provisional agenda of their first sessions.

As decided by the Conference, the intergovernmental machinery of UNCTAD was restructured in accordance with the organization's new work programme, which focuses on a few priority trade and development issues on which it can make a substantial impact. The UNCTAD IX decided that the Board would hold one annual regular session and could also hold three one-day executive sessions a year. It could set up subsidiary bodies, known as "commissions", which would perform integrated policy work in their respective areas of competence, meeting once a year, in sessions as short as possible and not exceeding five days.

The three new commissions are the following: Commission on Trade in Goods and Services and Commodities; Commission on Investment, Technology and Related Financial Issues; and Commission on Enterprise, Business Facilitation and Development. Each commission may convene expert meetings of short duration, the Conference also decided.

The first session of the Commission on Trade in Goods and Services and Commodities will exceptionally be split into two parts. The first part, scheduled to be held from 6 to 8 November, will focus on the impact of the Uruguay Round Agreements on development and on ways of enhancing capacities for participation in the multilateral trading system. At the second part, scheduled to convene from 19 to 21 February, the Commission will analyse progress, and identify outstanding issues, in the integration of trade, environment and development since the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED). In connection with the work of that Commission, an executive session of the Board is scheduled for the first quarter of 1997 to discuss issues arising from the ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO) to be held in Singapore later in the year.

- 2 - Press Release TAD/1833 9 July 1996

The first session of the Commission on Investment, Technology and Related Financial Issues is tentatively scheduled to be held from 18 to 22 November. Two major topics on its provisional agenda are: interaction between investment and trade and its impact on development; and issues related to competition law of particular relevance to development. An experts' meeting will be convened in preparation for the latter item.

The Commission on Enterprise, Business Facilitation and Development is tentatively scheduled to meet from 20 to 24 January 1997. It will focus on enterprise development strategy and services infrastructure for development, including a trade efficiency assessment.

In its half-day executive session, chaired by Jacobs S. Selebi (South Africa), the Board also approved the draft provisional agenda of its annual meeting, to be held from 7 to 18 October. At that meeting, ministers and corporate executives, as well as heads of intergovernmental bodies, will meet for a one-day informal segment, on 10 October, to discuss investment and development issues.

It is proposed that the Board's high-level segment be focused on three topics: trends, determinants and impediments in foreign direct investment (FDI) flows and policy implications; interrelationships between investment, trade and technology; and review of existing FDI agreements and analysis of issues relevant to a possible multilateral framework on investment and implications for development.

In its annual discussions on interdependence, the Board will consider lessons from the east Asian development experience in the context of the rethinking of development strategies. It will also review the implementation of the Programme of Action for the Least Developed Countries for the 1990s, as well as the role of UNCTAD in the implementation of the United Nations System-wide Special Initiative on Africa.

As a follow-up to UNCTAD IX, the UNCTAD secretariat will prepare an information compendium on United Nations system-wide organizations, with particular reference to Geneva-based ones, as to how participation of developing country experts is financed in their meetings. This information should help the Board to advance discussions on expert participation at UNCTAD meetings.

Also this morning, Slovenia was elected member of the Board, bringing its membership to 144.

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