UNCTAD X ADDRESSED BY PRESIDENTS OF INDONESIA AND PHILIPPINES, PRIME MINISTERS OF MALAYSIA, SINGAPORE AND JAPAN

Press Release
TAD/1904

UNCTAD X ADDRESSED BY PRESIDENTS OF INDONESIA AND PHILIPPINES, PRIME MINISTERS OF MALAYSIA, SINGAPORE AND JAPAN

Deputy Prime Minister of Thailand Elected Conference President; UNCTAD IX President, UNCTAD Secretary-General Deliver Statements to Bangkok Meeting

(Received from UN Information Officer.)

BANGKOK, 12 February -- The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) must strengthen its role in promoting the economic development of developing countries to be relevant and responsible in a complex new era, Supachai Panitchpakdi, Deputy Prime Minister of Thailand and newly elected President of UNCTAD X, said at the opening of the Tenth session’s general debate this evening.

One of UNCTAD’s key roles was to build consensus around issues of common interest to all member States, he explained. The challenge of UNCTAD X was therefore to set the right conditions for constructive dialogue and to help shape the trade and development agenda of the twenty-first century.

Rubens Ricupero, the Secretary-General of UNCTAD, told the Conference that UNCTAD X would be the Asian conference, just as UNCTAD IX, held in Midrand, South Africa, was the African conference. The location was important because UNCTAD needed to show it was equally useful to countries that were developing successfully. While UNCTAD was closer to poor and least developed countries, it was only by stressing interdependence that a consensus on central development issues would be built.

The Prime Minister of Malaysia, Mohathir Bin Mohamad, said the existing international infrastructure was inadequate to effectively deal with developmental problems and crises. It had not been able to cope with the challenges confronting the developing world, as the Asian financial crisis had shown.

The President of Singapore, Goh Chok Tong, agreed that a new framework was urgently needed -- a new global order to sustain a global consensus on open markets and to moderate its worst excesses. Without such a framework, international consensus on an open-trading regime would be eroded by the pressures and dislocations of the relentless market.

Statements this evening were also made by Abdurrahman Wahid, President of Indonesia, Joseph Ejercito Estrada, President of the Philippines, Keizo Obuchi, Prime Minister of Japan, and the South African Minister of Trade and Industry, Alec Erwin, in his capacity as President of UNCTAD IX. The Conference will meet again at 9 a.m. tomorrow, 13 February, to hear the first in a series of interactive debates on development issues¸ with a keynote address by the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, Michael Camdessus. It will then continue its general debate.

Statements

ALEC ERWIN, Minister of Trade and Industry of South Africa and President of UNCTAD IX (1996): Prior to UNCTAD IX, held in Midrand, South Africa, some asked if UNCTAD still had a role, given the establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO). In thinking about this, South Africa noted the emphasis on partnership developed at UNCTAD VIII in Cartagena was correct, and UNCTAD IX’s Midrand Declaration built on this. The centrality of interdependence and the need to grapple with development made all committed to strengthening UNCTAD, and the experience of the last four years testified to the accuracy of the Midrand assessment.

UNCTAD is often seen as a platform for the frustrations of developing countries, and the developed world comes here to do damage control. For both sides, other multilateral organizations seem to be more important. Developing countries correctly want to strengthen their capacity, and developed countries correctly see technical assistance as the logical proposition. But to delegate UNCTAD to a servicing role would be a mistake. UNCTAD is the place of partnership. It has informed a positive agenda for developing countries in the WTO and contributed to highlighting the urgent need to assist least-developed countries, and a realization of how significant a problem debt servicing is.

The international community must now go further, and accept that development is not an uncomfortable adjunct to the world economy but lies at the heart of future prosperity. Denying people a better life is untenable. If the majority of people are to enjoy developed world standards of living, then the required increases in world production will have to be sustainable. The increases cannot occur in existing industrial economies, and, as developing economies grow, jobs in develop countries will be threatened. These matters are not for developing countries alone, and cannot be addressed in forums set up for other distinct purposes. There can be nothing more important now than a knowledge-driven UNCTAD, which must be a place of listening and disseminating collective wisdom to all policy makers. No other multilateral organization can do this.

SUPACHAI PANITCHPAKDI, President of UNCTAD X: It is not an easy task that has been conferred on the presidency, given the rapidly evolving global environment. We have entered the defining era of a complex relationship between globalization and development and trade, investment and finance. To be relevant and responsible, UNCTAD must therefore strengthen its role in a way that enables it to satisfy its raison d’être -- the promotion of the economic development of developing countries.

Revitalized at its last session, UNCTAD now plays a vital role as a forum for consensus-building on trade and investment and development related issues. We expect UNCTAD to enhance its contribution as a major player in the future of global development. Thailand attaches great importance to this Conference and has spared no effort to ensure its success. UNCTAD X is one of the driving forces to move trade and development issues forward and create the right setting to face the new challenges.

One of UNCTAD’s key roles is to build consensus around issues that are of common interest to all member States. The challenge of this conference is to set the right conditions for constructive dialogue and to help shape the trade and development agenda of the twenty-first century. This is an enormous task, but together we shall meet the challenge and prevail.

The Secretary-General of UNCTAD, RUBENS RICUPERO: Four years ago, UNCTAD went to South Africa in the midst of a crisis of identity. It was in the process of being redefined. South Africa was also being born again. UNCTAD was there at the moment of transition. At the time, it looked like a miracle that the seemingly intractable problem of South Africa had found solution. There were some who questioned whether the change would last, but it proved to be a renaissance for South Africa. This renaissance inspired UNCTAD IX.

It is timely that UNCTAD X is being held in South-East Asia. For decades, until recently, this region had been perhaps the only success story of sustained development. It was then affected by a terrible financial crisis. Now the region is coming out of crisis -– being reborn –- at the same time as UNCTAD is moving to consolidate its role. Even at the height of the financial crisis, Thailand increased expenditure on education. This region and this country will succeed and be strong after the crisis because of talent and devotion. Thailand is destined to a future of development and of full opportunities for all.

As Midrand was, in some way, the African conference of UNCTAD, this will be the Asian conference. This is important, as UNCTAD needs to show that it is equally useful for countries that are succeeding in development. A spirit of mutuality of interest should be the tone set for this conference. UNCTAD is closer to the poor and to the least developed countries. This was its task and the reason it was created. However the world and UNCTAD are interdependent. It was only in stressing interdependence that a consensus on central issues would be built.

MAHATHIR BIN MOHAMAD, Prime Minister of Malaysia: The existing international infrastructure is inadequate to effectively deal with developmental problems and crises. International institutional machinery has not been able to cope with the challenges confronting the developing world, as the Asian financial crisis had shown. The responsibility to address development is a collective one. Developed countries must play an active role in assisting countries affected by these problems. However, developing countries must accept that they too have to do their bit to ensure that sustainable growth and prosperity can be attained.

Developing countries must continue to enhance domestic resilience and capacity. Apart from the efforts of developing countries, industrialized countries also have a special responsibility to facilitate this process by helping developing countries to gain access to knowledge, ideas and inventions, which must be made available at a reasonable price. All countries must work together to manage the globalization process for everyone’s mutual benefit. In the context of trade liberalization, greater flexibility must be given to developing countries for a wide variety of options and responses to deal with the complexities of development and nation-building. This aspect and the special situation of development are often not given adequate and appropriate treatment in trade liberalization negotiations.

To be able to manage the pace and direction of liberalization and globalization, developing countries must be allowed to effectively participate in the decision-making process in all international institutions. A situation of worldwide oligopoly seems to be already emerging. If market forces are allowed free play, then oligopolies may end up monopolies. Can it be possible that a corporation is not a monopoly in its own country of domicile but one in the rest of the world? In such a case, whose laws will apply? And if we restrain them, would we be accused of not subscribing to globalization and liberalization?

ABDURRAHMAN WAHID, President of Indonesia: The Prime Minister of Malaysia has expressed Indonesia’s fears and worries and also its hopes and happiness. His was not a sad voice but a voice of hope for the future. As he said, the interests of developed countries sometimes overwhelmed those of developing countries. When this happened, developing countries objected, but often they were not in a position to buck the system. The international monetary regulations must be changed, as the current structure took the weakness of some for granted. At present, Indonesia had to accept developed countries' arrangements, but when it was strong it would not be tied to them.

It was important that UNCTAD remember that others shared the concerns expressed by the Malaysian Prime Minister. Indonesia was currently weak, and therefore could be manipulated. Not many countries could do what Malaysia had done when it bucked the system. But it is time for developed countries to change international regulations so that world wealth is shared more equitably.

UNCTAD, as a part of the United Nations, was established to serve the interests of countries, and if it failed to serve these interests in a balanced way, leaving a small number of countries to take everything, then it was not just and would be replaced. The Organization must address the question of how free trade could be promoted at the same time as the interests of all were taken care of. A balance between the two was needed –- it need not be perfect, but it must be a working balance. UNCTAD must find and preserve that balance. In the future it must also find a balance between the requirements of multinational organizations and the needs of people. The poor people sought happiness and material well-being. A balance between profits and the needs of the poor must be found. UNCTAD should not forget its principles.

GOH CHOK TONG, President of Singapore: While free markets create unprecedented prosperity, there is also a price. With rapid progress also comes disorientation, disruption of settled order and new insecurities. What is urgently needed is a new framework -- a new global order to sustain a global consensus on open markets and to moderate its worst excesses. Without a new framework, the international consensus of an open trading regime will be inevitably eroded by the pressures and dislocations of the relentless market. The world could evolve into a two-tier system of developed economies linked by trade and technology on the one hand, and on the other, those who either seek to voluntarily shut themselves off or are marginalized.

The construction of such a new global framework is a project that must appeal to the South in general and UNCTAD in particular. While globalization’s effects are most evident in finance and economics, there are far-reaching implications across a range of issues. It affects the very notion of statehood and government as they have hitherto been understood. In a globalized economy, financial and economic geography no longer coincide with political geography. Dealing with this phenomenon requires a re-conceptualization of the very idea of government and statehood. What is also needed is an unprecedented and qualitatively new kind of international cooperation.

Urgent remedial action must be taken to deal with global issues. A new round of trade negotiations must begin, if necessary, through a building-block approach. A review of the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) should be undertaken, institutionalized, perhaps, under the WTO. There is also a need for a mind-set shift by both the developing and developed countries: categorizing countries into North and South is not useful in finding solutions to global problems. The developed countries must avoid a sterile “triumphalism” or a one- medicine-cures-all prescription. Also, consensus must prevail Unilateralism will only provoke resistance -- and not just from the developing countries.

KEIZO OBUCHI, Prime Minister of Japan: For stable development of the global economic system and for mankind’s future prosperity, discussions of how best to use the benefits of a unified world economy are essential. In the latter half of the twentieth century, trade, investment and capital flows have been dramatically liberalized and national economic systems have been harmonized. It is essential that developing countries participate in the new sophisticated, information-oriented world economy to fully benefit from globalization; Japan will help develop information and communication societies in them.

One of the most important tasks for managing the international economy is the maintenance and strengthening of the multilateral trading system embodied in the WTO. Confidence-building with developing countries is currently an important task. It is particularly important that a comprehensive round of negotiations on greater market access and stronger WTO rules, taking the interests and concerns of developing countries into account, is launched promptly. Japan will work with other major countries to bring about duty free and quota free preferential treatment for all imports from least developed countries.

It is important to ensure the stable flow of private-sector capital to developing countries, without increasing the risk that comes with massive and rapid capital transfers. It is also important that developing countries proceed with capital liberalization, strengthen their financial systems, manage their macro-economies consistently and improve the environment for trade and investment. Effort must be made to identify the causes of the recent global financial crisis, to help minimize the difficulties of globalization and to help avoid a recurrence. Debt relief for developing countries is also required, but it is not a panacea for resolving the problem of poverty. It is a global responsibility to ensure that the rapid change of recent times benefits all.

JOSEPH EJERCITO ESTRADA, President of the Philippines: While the South- East Asian crisis has been contained and reversed, now is scarcely the time to slacken or to celebrate. The momentum of recovery and growth must be sustained. One cornerstone of the partnership between States and UNCTAD can be a paradigm shift for development cooperation. A second cornerstone of the partnership is the continuous updating of the global economic structures themselves in support of development.

The Asian crisis has shown that the international financial architecture has to be strengthened. The volatility induced by untrammeled flight of speculative capital must be reduced. In incorporating the development dimension as the overarching theme in WTO efforts to strengthen the multilateral trading system, we can respond in a positive way to the valid concerns of civil society. One way of doing this is by improving access for the agricultural exports of developing countries.

A third cornerstone of the new partnership is the fulfilment of old promises and not the making of new ones. In this context, official development assistance remains a powerful tool for development in an open environment. The new partnership should fulfil the official development assistance promises made three decades ago. True debt relief for the world’s most heavily indebted countries must be realized immediately. However, developing countries, the beneficiaries of these promises, must do their end of the deal. Absorptive capacity must be improved and the assistance of debt relief must be put to real work. The final cornerstone of the new global development partnership should be unequivocal orientation to the future. This can be done by making the benefits of science and technology reach the remotest towns and villages.

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