NOTE TO CORRESPONDENTS PANEL DISCUSSION ON 'GLOBAL ECONOMIC TRENDS' TO BE HELD AT HEADQUARTERS

Press Release

NOTE TO CORRESPONDENTS PANEL DISCUSSION ON 'GLOBAL ECONOMIC TRENDS' TO BE HELD AT HEADQUARTERS

A panel discussion on "global economic trends", moderated by the Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Information and Policy Analysis, Jean-Claude Milleron, will be held at 10 a.m. on Monday, 14 October, in Conference Room 2. The discussion will be the first of a series of meetings organized by the Chairman of the General Assembly's Second Committee, Arjan Hamburger (Netherlands), in connection with the Committee's deliberations.

Participants in the discussion, which is co-sponsored by the Government of the Netherlands and the United Nations University, include the following: John Williamson, Chief Economist in the Office of the Vice-President for the South Asian region in the World Bank; Arjun Sengupta, a former Executive Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Sri Lanka; and Jean Pisani-Ferry, Director at the Centre d'Etudes Prospectives et d'Informations Internationales in Paris.

Among topics to be discussed is the surge in capital flows to developing countries and challenges to development policy in the late 1990s. Also the challenge confronting the European Union to find a balance between widening its membership and deepening the degree of integration among its members will be considered. Following introductory remarks by speakers, the floor will be open to questions and comments by delegations.

Another panel discussion, focusing on the external debt problem and moderated by the Under-Secretary-General for Policy Coordination and Sustainable Development, Nitin Desai, has been scheduled to be held on 11 November.

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