The UNCTAD Trade and Development Board - the organization´s highest executive body between the quadrennial ministerial Conferences - will hold its annual session from 13 to 24 October. The President is expected to be Ambassador Goce Petreski of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, who will hold office for the next twelve months.
Discussions at the Board will focus on the broad issues of economic interdependence and globalization, and their impact on developing countries - notably, their socio-economic development and competitiveness. The main specific agenda items relate to Africa and the Least Developed Countries (LDCs). The Board will also be informed about a four-day meeting to be held in November 1998 in Lyon (France) with the aim of launching "Partnerships for Development" in specific areas of UNCTAD´s work, between NGOs, the business community, and governments.
Two major events are scheduled at the Board´s session. The first is a
High-Level Segment on "Globalization, Competition, Competitiveness and Development"
On Thursday 23 October (Assembly Hall, Palais des Nations) a policy debate among Ministers and other senior officials will be held on this topic. The Moderator and Chairman will be H.E. Mr. Jan Pronk, Minister for Development Cooperation of The Netherlands.
The morning session (9.30 a.m - 1.30 p.m.) will be devoted to the relationship between competition and competitiveness from a development perspective. What has been the role of competition law and policies in establishing the necessary conditions for the successful integration of some developing countries and economies in transition in global markets? And to what extent has success in achieving international competitiveness had positive consequences for employment, growth and development?
Mr. Pronk; Mr. Pedro Lizaña, former Chairman, Society of Industrial Development (Chilean Federation of Industry); Mr. Dani Rodrik, Professor of International Political Economy at Harvard University; Professor Kwesi Botwchwey, former Finance Minister of Ghana; and H.E. Pitak Intrawityanunt, Deputy Foreign Minister of Thailand will compose the panel. The President of UNCTAD IX, H.E. Mr. Alec Erwin, Minister of Trade and Industry of South Africa, is expected to act as the principal respondent.
(A press conference by Minister Pronk on "Globalization and the developing countries´ drive for competitiveness" is scheduled for 2.30 p.m. in Room III. For journalists ONLY).
The afternoon session (3.15 - 6.15 p.m.) will deal will the future of competition- a prospective examination of electronic commerce. Electronic commerce is reshaping the ways in which enterprises and nations compete on global markets. But, how does it affect developing countries?
This key question will be addressed by the following panelists: H.E. Mr. Carlos Ronderos, Minister of Foreign Trade of Colombia; Mr. Geza Feketekuty, Director, Center for Trade and Commercial Diplomacy, Monterrey Institute of International Studies, San Diego, California; and Mr. Tariq Sayeed, Chairman, G77 Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Developing Countries.
The second part of the afternoon session will be devoted to the UNCTAD Secretary-General´s Partners for Development project. Lyon´s Deputy Mayor and Member of the European Parliament, André Soulier, will launch an event to be held in his city in November 1998. A video message by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and an address by Mr. Rubens Ricupero will testify to the importance the United Nations attaches to the strengthening of practical cooperation with the business community and civil society, in the cause of development.
Prebisch lecture
The second special event will be the eight Raul Prebisch Lecture, to be delivered at 10 a.m., on Friday 24 October, in Room XIX, by Professor Dani Rodrik of the Harvard University. The lecture is called: Globalization, social conflict and economic growth (see TAD/INF/PR/9721). It represents the latest in a series of public lectures given by distinguished academics or policy-makers on important topical issues.
Interdependence
During the first week of the Board, the main event will be an intergovernmental discussion on Globalization, Growth and Distribution. The debate is expected to highlight one of the most urgent issues of the day: the growing inequalities within, and across, countries in the world economy and the threat that these pose to closer economic integration. What scope exists for domestic policies to achieve a faster, and more broadly shared, pattern of growth will be discussed. So, too, will the international environment required to achieve this goal.
The arguments and conclusions contained in the UNCTAD Trade and Development Report 1997 (see TAD/INF/PR/9711 and TAD/INF/PR/9712) will provide the background for the debate. Further views will emerge from two panel discussions: the first on Development Strategies for Equity and Growth in a Globalizing World (14 October p.m.), with Professor Deepak Nayyar of Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and the second on "Globalization and the Development Challenges of the 21st Century" (15 October a.m.) with Mr. Robert Boyer, Head of Research, Centre national de recherche scientifique (CNRS), Paris, and Mr. William Pfaff, a Paris-based syndicated columnist for the International Herald Tribune, and other US publications.
Least Developed Countries
On 16 and 17 October, delegates will discuss the socio-economic situation in the LDCs, drawing on the Least Developed Countries 1997 Report (see TAD/INF/PR/9713-2715). Special attention will be devoted to policy reforms in agriculture and their implications for LDCs´ development. The following week, on 22 October, the Board will hear the views of three outside experts -- Mr. Idris Jazairy, Executive Director, Agency for Co-operation and Research in Development (ACORD), London; Mr. Nurul Islam, from the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Washington; and, Mr. S.A. Tayfour, General Manager of the Saudi Sudanese Bank and a former Sudanese Finance Minister -- on this subject.
As usual, the Board will also review progress made in the implementation of the United Nations Programme of Action for the LDCs for the 1990s. It will also consider a proposal to convene a Third Global Review Conference on these countries in the year 2000.
Africa
On 20 and 21 October the Board will focus on the recent performance and prospects for Africa, and examine resulting policy issues. In a document prepared for the Board (TD/B/44/12) the UNCTAD secretariat examines the factors underlying the recent economic performance of Africa and assesses their medium to long-term sustainability. To assist the Board´s deliberations, an informal debate involving Mr. Rashad Cassim, Director, Trade and Industrial Policy Secretariat, International Development Research Center (IDRC), South Africa; Mr. Louis Amedee Darga, StraConsult, Mauritius; and, Mr. Gerry Helleiner of the University of Toronto, Canada, will be held.
Palestinian economy
The Board will have before it a report (TD/B/44/10) prepared by the UNCTAD secretariat which describes the recent orientation of the secretariat´s technical assistance as regards Palestinian trade, finance and related services. Priority future projects are identified. The report also briefly examines developments in the Palestinian economy since 1995.
Other topics
As in preceding years, the Board will review the entire programme of UNCTAD´s technical cooperation activities over the past year, based on a report (TD/B/44/11 + Add.1 & 2) prepared by the UNCTAD secretariat. In June 1997, the Board adopted a strategy for UNCTAD´s technical cooperation which will be implemented through annually updated, rolling three-year plans (see TAD/INF/PR/9709).
Finally, a report (TD/B/44/9) will be submitted to the Board summarizing specific actions undertaken by UNCTAD and other international and intergovernmental organizations to promote effective transit transport systems for land-locked developing countries.
Membership
To date UNCTAD´s membership stands at 188 countries; of these 144 are Members of the Trade and Development Board.
Following the change in status of Hong Kong which, on 1 July, became a Special Administrative Region of the People´s Republic of China, the latter has informed the United Nations that, as of that date, "representatives of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government, may, as and when the need arises, participate, as members of the delegation of the Government of the People´s Republic of China, in the meetings of the UN Conference on Trade and Development".
