7:39 AM Sep 27, 1994

MEXICO: SALINAS WANTS MARKET OPENING TO OVERCOME POVERTY

United Nations, Sep 26 (TWN/IPS) - Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari told the UN general assembly Monday that the integration of markets on a global level will promote development and overcome poverty and promote respect for human rights.

In his speech to the 49th UN general assembly, Salinas, who has sponsored himself as a candidate to head the World Trade Organization, stressed the need to be alert to protectionist trade practices, and said the new WTO will contribute to the opening of markets.

"In recent years, the world has experienced a transition towards an opening of trade unprecedented in modern history," he said, referring to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) which united Canada, Mexico and the United States in the world's single largest market.

"The new economic opening is a reason to feel optimistic that freer trade will contribute to the eradication of poverty. More trade will translate into more and better jobs," he added.

Salinas warned, however, that "we must be wary of protectionism and recognise that the new financial resources are still insufficient to meet the needs of developing countries.

"The consolidation of the current opening of markets is necessary...Nothing will contribute better to that end than the implementation of the WTO, which will complement the Bretton Woods institutions (International Monetary Fund and World Bank)."

The Mexican President also praised "the path of dialogue" which Cuba and the United States took to resolve immigration problems, and insisted on "full respect of the sovereignty and the right of self- determination of the Cuban people."

With regards to Haiti, Salinas said that "the use of force, or the threat of such use, when world peace is not endangered is no longer appropriate to achieve the goals of sovereign nations."

Praising the work of UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Salinas said he "deserves more recognition." He then went on to criticise the efforts of High Commissioner for Human Rights Jose Ayala Lasso as "worthy but insufficient."

Salinas said the UN's work in the area of human rights questions must include attention to issues of economic development. A prerequisite for progress on human rights was the eradication of inequalities between individuals, groups, peoples and nations, and specified in this regard the need for "development on the basis of fair access to markets, capital and new technologies".

According to Salinas, the path to sustained economic growth in developing countries lay not in aid packages from donor countries but in trade liberalization, whereby these nations have equal opportunities to market their products in world markets.

He identified hunger, unemployment, the depletion of natural resources and trade protectionism as among the obstacles to development and the "full exercise of human rights".