press briefing on eleventh ministerial meeting of united nations

 

conference on trade and development

The eleventh ministerial meeting of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), to be convened in Sao Paolo, Brazil, from 13 to 18 June, would present an excellent opportunity for countries with a strong interest in the link between trade and development to take stock of efforts to resume negotiations in Geneva since the Cancun stalemate of September 2003, Rubens Ricupero, Secretary-General of the upcoming event, said at a Headquarters press briefing this afternoon.

Mr. Ricupero said there was general agreement that the last possible period to reach an agreement on the framework for future trade negotiations would be the end of July.  Thus, the Conference would take place about one month before that deadline.  It was important to conduct those negotiations in the spirit of the Doha development round initiated to address many of the developing countries’ complaints, including those involving access to markets and the need to redress past imbalances in the world trade system.

Dedicated to the theme “Enhancing coherence between national development strategies and global economic processes towards economic growth and development, particularly of developing countries”, the upcoming Conference would deal specifically with those matters, he said, because UNCTAD was the United Nations focal point for development issues in the fields of trade, finance, investment and technology.

While it was difficult to predict whether trade negotiations in the World Trade Organization (WTO) would be successful, the conditions in “the real world of trade” were much more encouraging than in the recent past, he said.  The world economy was accelerating and would probably grow by as much as 4.5 per cent this year.  World trade had grown by 4.7 per cent last year, and according to estimates, it could grow by 7.5 per cent in 2004, providing better opportunities for exports and creating a more propitious general climate for trade negotiations.

Another important element was a newly found self-confidence on behalf of developing countries, in part thanks to the enormous economic success of China and India, he said.  A tremendous expansion of intra-Asian trade was creating an important force in favour of the South-South trade.  That, in turn, was generating a feeling that developing countries had much to contribute to the world economy, while developed countries depended at the same time on trade and development in the developing world.  That interdependence was a fundamental pillar of UNCTAD’s philosophy.

He said that with all those elements in place, there was a good chance to ensure the success of UNCTAD XI, making it a constructive force for moderation and realism compared to other forums where multilateralism “was not faring so well”.

[UNCTAD’s ministerial-level meeting is held every four years to set the organization’s priorities and guidelines for action.  It is UNCTAD's highest governing body and includes a high-level debate on current issues involving economics and development.]

Also present at the briefing was Ambassador Luiz de Felipe de Seixas de Correa of Brazil, who said that two documents were expected to come out of the “multi-product-oriented Conference”.  One of them -- currently being negotiated at the Preparatory Committee in Geneva -– would be structured around the four “main pillars” of the Sao Paulo event:  development strategies in a globalizing world economy; building productive capacity and international competitiveness; assuring development gains from the international trading system and trade negotiations; and partnerships for development.  As was customary at that kind of a conference, the host country would, at a later stage, present a much shorter document that would build on the substance of the main outcome.

He said that a number of meetings preceding the Conference would involve representatives of international organizations, non-governmental organizations, parliamentarians and civil society.

In response to a question about UNCTAD’s role in the Doha round negotiations, Mr. Ricupero said the negotiations themselves had been conducted by WTO members, and there was now an attempt to resume the stalled process.  Cancun had been unable to agree on the modalities for concrete negotiations, but UNCTAD could make a contribution, as it dealt with the trade and development concerns of the developing countries, some of which had not been addressed by the WTO.  The main concern of the developing countries was to ensure that trade negotiations had a strong development content and UNCTAD was trying to suggest certain development guidelines that could help the negotiating parties to assess the difficulties they were facing.  Agreement on those benchmarks could pave the way towards success in the WTO.

Among major problems that were not directly covered by the WTO trade negotiations, he said, were developing countries’ commodity dependence and the erosion of the system of preferences.  In fact, one of the reasons why some countries had been reluctant to engage in negotiations was the fact that they did not see their interests as fully reflected because of their absence from the WTO agenda.  The UNCTAD would try to help the developing countries to diversify their trade in order to overcome an excessive reliance on such commodities as coffee and sugar.  The UNCTAD was also trying to come up with ideas to ensure greater predictability in the preferential arrangements.  In that sense, UNCTAD’s success in dealing with those problems would increase the chances for success in the trade negotiations themselves.

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