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Unctad meeting to focus on global financial turmoil

Supachai Panitchpakdi

CHENNAI: With recession threatening the United States, and growth weakening in Europe, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad) has warned that international economic prospects increasingly hinge on the ability of developing nations to continue posting strong growth rates, particularly in the event that a prolonged downturn in the industrialised North cuts demand for exports from the developing South.

“The strong growth rates of the past several years mean, on the other hand, that developing countries are in a stronger position to withstand financial and economic turmoil than they were ten years ago. Their main role will be to try to maintain as much domestic demand as possible and to focus increasingly on regional integration. In addition, the big surpluses built up by governments and national agencies in those countries can contribute to promoting financial stability,” said an Unctad release on the eve of its Ministerial meeting.

The Twelfth Unctad Ministerial Meeting, which will be held in Accra, Ghana, from April 20 to 25, will discuss ways to limit the impact of financial volatility on the world’s poorest and ensure that the global economy benefits developing countries. The meeting will focus on the theme of “Addressing the opportunities and challenges of globalization for development,” dealing specifically with the impact on developing countries of the current financial and economic crisis, while trying to maintain the dynamism of ‘emerging economies’ such as China, India, Brazil and South Africa, according to Unctad. “What are the options for improving the international monetary and financial system in order to correct imbalances and asymmetries and avoid future crises? Can the current commodity price boom be translated into more employment?” are among the questions that Supachai Panitchpakdi, Secretary-General of Unctad, has raised in a pre-conference statement.

UNCTAD XII will also examine how the growth in South-South trade, investment and aid were transforming the world economic landscape, he said. The growing trade in services and the related expansion in international labour migration will also be considered, as well the impact of Asia’s mounting energy needs on energy security and climate change.

Delegations are expected to lay out their common vision of a response to such economic challenges in the final documents to emerge from the meeting.

The intensive negotiations on those documents, under way for some time, will continue in Accra during sessions of Unctad’s Committee of the Whole, said a release from the UN agency.

The discussions are expected to focus on ways to make trade work for development, bearing in mind discussions leading up to the November Doha follow-up conference to the Monterrey Consensus on development financing and ongoing negotiations on equitable trade regimes.

The ministerial meeting, Unctad’s highest body, is held every four years to set the organisation’s priorities and guidelines for action and discuss key economic and development issues.

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