BUSINESS TO BRIEF ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL ON BOLSTERING CROSS-BORDER INVESTMENT, SETTLING NATIONAL DEBT CRISES, 21 MARCH

Note to Correspondents

BUSINESS TO BRIEF ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL ON BOLSTERING CROSS-BORDER

INVESTMENT, SETTLING NATIONAL DEBT CRISES, 21 MARCH

Proposals on increasing the scope and spread of private investment in poor countries and to establishing a framework for resolving national debt crises to the benefit of both creditors and the debtor country will be presented by business leaders to a special session of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), at Headquarters on 21 March.  The business dialogue will be held from 9:30 a.m. to 1:15 p.m., and a briefing on business initiatives will take place from 3 p.m. to  6 p.m., in the ECOSOC Chamber.

The ECOSOC session is a follow-up to the International Conference on Financing for Development, held a year ago, 18-22 March, in Monterrey, Mexico.  The consensus agreed in Monterrey by world leaders and heads of State, including Presidents George W. Bush and Jacques Chirac, established working agreement on development principles between countries of the North and South and was the occasion for pledges of development assistance that reversed a decades-long period of decline or stagnation.

A contact group that coordinated the private sector component in Monterrey has remained involved in follow-up, and is organizing business presentations to the 21 March dialogue with ECOSOC ambassadors.  Results of the dialogue will, in turn, serve as input to a 14 April meeting of the Council that will be attended by finance ministers en route from the World Bank/International Monetary Fund (IMF) annual spring meeting in Washington, as well as representatives of the World Trade Organization (WTO).  All of the above multilateral organizations worked together with the United Nations to organize the Monterrey Conference.

The contact group will hold a press conference in room S-226 at 11 a.m. on 21 March.  Presenting will be Maria Livanos Cattaui, Secretary General of the International Chamber of Commerce; Dr. Barbara Samuels II of President Samuels Associates; Crocker Snow, Director of Money Matters Institute; and Paul Underwood, Executive Director of the Business Council for the United Nations.  Also available to the press tomorrow will be William Chew, Managing Director of Corporate & Government Ratings, Standard & Poors; Clare Cowan, Chief Executive Officer, Venture Exchange Network; Frank Fernandez, Chief Economist, Securities Industries Association; James Mutende, Manager (former), Uganda Commercial Bank; Ron Nechemia, Chairman, EurOrient Financial Group; and Robert Sheppard, Managing Director, J.R. Sheppard & Co. LLC.

A private sector briefing on business financing–for-development initiatives is sponsored by the International Chamber of Commerce, the Business Council for the United Nations, Money Matters Institute and Samuels Associates. 

                                    - 2 -                     Note No. 5782

                                                               20 March 2003

Journalists without United Nations credentials who wish to attend the meeting or press conference should fax a letter of assignment to the United Nations Media Accreditation and Liaison Unit at 1-212-963-4642, and follow up with a call to 1-212-963-7164.  For more information or to arrange interviews with United Nationsambassadors and staff or business representatives, contact Tim Wall of the Development Section of the Department Public Information at 1-212-963-5851; e-mail:  wallt@un.org.

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