Annan, Blair and EU chief to attend South summit---Meeting of the Committee of Secretariat---Qatar all set to host G77 summit-------

Staff Reporter
The developed world hasn’t kept up its promises on economic liberalisation although the South has fulfilled all its commitments, Qatar’s First Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister charged yesterday.
Addressing the opening session of the ministerial meeting of the Group of  77 and China at Doha Sheraton, HE Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabor al-Thani said the developing world had already taken steps to liberalise their economies. “We have incorporated the social commitments into our national development strategy and adapted the management of our economy to the commitments we have taken.”
But, “our partners” hadn’t reciprocated, considering the “intensive discussions which took place in New York in the framework of preparations for the review of the implementation of the Millennium Declaration”.
The objective of the Doha Summit, which begins tomorrow, is directly related to ensuring prosperity and quality of life to the peoples of the South. Without development, it would be impossible to meet the expectations of our peoples.
“We are confronted with three types of concerns dealing respectively with the current status of international economic co-operation, our contribution to such co-operation as regards the countries of the South, and in particular the place of the South in the world today.”
HE Sheikh Hamad bin Jabor noted that “globalisation is skewed in favour of the developed countries and the content of development-related negotiations in WTO is not clearly defined.”
The foreign debt remains a heavy burden for many low-income or medium-income countries, and despite the series of initiatives, no solution to the problem had yet been found. Only a few developed countries have fulfilled the commitment they took several years ago to devote 0.7% of their GDP to official aid to development.
Besides, the participation of developing countries in the decision-making process at international level is still pending. As a result, the influence of these countries on decisions regarding financial, monetary and commercial policies is all but significant.
“Worse, we are now witnessing attempts aimed at limiting the role of the UN regarding major economic issues, despite genuine achievements made by this organisation over the last decade.
The minister called for all-out efforts to reach an agreement on an effective agenda for development during the UN General Assembly summit to be organised next September.
Developing countries are not in need of any further commitment. They are expecting an effective implementation of previous promises. “We are in need of a clearly defined schedule for the implementation of these commitments as well as of mechanisms likely to help us make sure that the commitments taken by our development partners have been translated into facts.”
HE the First Deputy Prime Minister also insisted that “we should also make sure that the interests of developing countries are fully taken into consideration in international and multilateral economic regulations.”
Rational economic management also meant that there should be a reform of institutions to ensure a more democratic, more equitable and more representative decision-making process which are likely to meet the needs of all peoples.
Co-operation between the North and the South is a main component of international economic relations. South-South co-operation reinforces multilateralism, he added.
While calling for a full implementation of the provisions of the decisions of the first summit in Havana and the Marrakech meeting on South-South co-operation, the minister referred to the new orientations proposed for the Doha summit.
They include strengthening trade among countries of the South and developing markets in the South region; and incorporating South-South co-operation in the national development strategies of developing countries. They also aim at co-operation in human resources and technologies and co-operation between the private sectors of the South.
“All these proposals and others which we should translate into facts, have been incorporated into the Plan of Action to be adopted this week in Doha”, HE Sheikh Hamad bin Jabor al-Thani said.

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