CONFERENCE ON TRADE AND DEVELOPMENT MOVED INTO ITS SECOND AND FINAL WEEK

9:44 PM May 8, 1996

CONFERENCE ON TRADE AND DEVELOPMENT MOVED INTO ITS SECOND AND FINAL WEEK
The debates last week at the Ministerial round-tables and the plenary statements at the level of a vague generality suggest a consensus about the relevance of UNCTAD, about its unique development role and focus and bringing this development focus into trade and economic issues, sectoral or technical, being dealt with in the other international organizations.

There has also been a consensus of sorts that within this wide development mandate there is a need to focus on some important areas and prioritise the work of the institution in these.

However, the task facing the three drafting groups is how to translate this consensus into a consensus on details of the work programme of UNCTAD for the next four years and set the priorities.

And it is no easy task, particularly on questions relating to trade and the future trade agendas and work.

The first drafting committee dealing with these trade questions, chaired by Singapore's Alb. Kesavapani, Permanent Representative of his country to the UN Organizations in Geneva and to the WTO, found itself engaged in some tough discussions and debates in the analysis of the present situation and the future outlook.

It appears to have made only some minor progress on these.It is expected to put some of these aside for the moment, and go on to tackle the paragraphs on the work programme, of the secretariat and of the inter governmental body, and settle them before coming back to tackle the analytical and general objectives portions of the document.

Interestingly, the industrialized countries, and particularly the major ones (US, EU and Japan) which during the 1980s and early part of the 1990s, were very cool to any substantive work at UNCTAD on South-South cooperation -- seeing them as a threat to their own relations with the countries of the South -- are now pointing to this as a way of solving the market access and other trading problems of developing countries, whether in commodities or even many manufactured products.

The explanation for this can perhaps be found in terms of trying to wash their own hands of any responsibility for these problems in the South, and also their efforts for multilateral investment rules and disciplines to provide their TNCs right to invest and be assured of national treatment. When this is achieved, then the TNCs could exploit the South-South cooperation and trade preferences to "globules" these for their own benefit. For the developing country negotiators, to the extent the negotiators have an overall perception of the whole process, it is a question of how to take advantage of this to create South=South relationships, using the TNCs to the extent needed or possible, but establishing stronger economic links among themselves and one with forward and backward linkages into their domestic economies. The drafting groups have three days to complete their work, before handing over their tasks to a contact group of the President of the Conference. The Conference is due to conclude on Saturday.