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DOCUMENT No.13
Opening Statement by Mr. Kim Hak-Su Under-Secretary-
General of the United Nations and the Executive
Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission
for
Asia and the Pacific
Economic Cooperation Organization
Eighth Summit Meeting
14 September 2004
Dushanbe, Tajikistan
Your
Excellency, President Emomali Rakhmonov of the Republic of Tajikistan and
Chairman of the 8th ECO Summit,
Distinguished Heads of States and Governments,
Honorable ministers,
Secretary General of ECO,
Esteemed participants,
I am
highly privileged and honoured to address this 8th Summit of the Economic
Cooperation Organization. I wish to express our deepest appreciation for the
kind invitation extended to us by both the Government of Tajikistan and the
ECO secretariat to participate in this important meeting. I also wish to thank
the Government and people of Tajikistan for the excellent arrangements and the
warm hospitality accorded to all of us.
At
the 7th ECO Summit Meeting of 2002, the Leaders, through the Istanbul
Declaration, invited the relevant international as well as regional
organizations to continue providing technical and financial assistance to the
Economic Cooperation Organization and to extend such assistance to areas
including poverty alleviation, environment, energy efficiency and transfer of
technology. We, at the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia
and the Pacific (UNESCAP), would like to respond positively to this invitation
and strengthen our partnership with the sub-region as a whole.
I am
pleased to note that the Istanbul Declaration has given importance to poverty
alleviation. This precisely is the major thrust of our work at UNESCAP. In our
visionary report entitled ESCAP Towards 2020, which we issued on the
occasion of the commemorative 60th session of the Commission held in Shanghai
in April this year, we emphasized that our overarching mission is to tackle
poverty in all its forms. We will combat poverty: be it poverty of resources –
which keeps 800 million people in the region living on less than a dollar a
day; or poverty of opportunity – which excludes millions from sharing the
benefits of the region's economic growth; or poverty of rights – which
deprives the disadvantaged and disabled of their dignity and self-respect. We
will aim to achieve this objective through productive partnerships. And one
such partnership is with ECO.
Excellencies, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen,
Since the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding between ECO and UNESCAP
in July 1993, cooperation between our two organizations has grown from
strength to strength. This was evident at the 9th Consultative Meeting among
Executive Heads of Sub-regional Organizations and UNESCAP held in Shanghai in
April this year. At that meeting, the UNESCAP and ECO secretariats agreed that
our cooperation in trade and investment has assumed greater importance with
the coming of the ECO Trade Agreement (ECOTA). In this regard, our cooperation
should be enhanced in order to help facilitate the implementation of ECOTA,
the development of Rules of Origin, and the finalization of the Agreement on
Promotion and Protection of Investment among ECO member states.
Last
year, in this city, UNESCAP collaborated in the organization of the
International Economic Conference on Tajikistan in the Regional Context of
Central Asia, together with a Regional Round Table on Promotion of Foreign
Direct Investment. These meetings were attended by senior level
representatives from all ECO member countries.
Early this year, UNESCAP implemented a project on "Strengthening income and
employment generation for vulnerable groups of population in Central Asian
countries during economic transition". This project provided a detailed
examination and evaluation of existing income and employment generation
programmes in ECO member countries from Central Asia. The three-year project
on "Capacity Building for ESCAP Member States for Managing Globalization"
funded by the United Nations Development Account is now nearing completion.
Under this project, many activities in the area of macroeconomic policy and
management, trade facilitation issues including trade finance and issues
related to the WTO and Doha Development Agenda, and investment promotion and
facilitation were implemented in various ECO member countries. We expect to
conclude this project with a wrap-up conference at senior level to be held in
Moscow early next year. We anticipate strong ECO participation in this
conference.
In
the years ahead, the ten member countries of ECO will remain an important
focus of our work at UNESCAP. We will continue to provide an extensive
analysis of the macroeconomic performance of the member countries of ECO in
the annual issue of our flagship publication, Economic and Social Survey of
Asia and the Pacific. In this regard, we will make trenchant assessments
of short- to medium-term development prospects of ECO countries in the light
of changing global and regional conditions.
In
the transport sector, there is ongoing cooperation with UNESCAP in multimodal
transport. ECO has been a staunch supporter of the development of the Asian
Highway. Almost all the ECO countries have signed the Asian Highway Agreement.
At the ECO Ministerial Meeting on Transport and Communications held in Bishkek
in August 2004, the secretariats of UNESCAP and ECO agreed to plan to
strengthen collaboration, particularly in support of the ongoing work on Asian
Highway investments and SPECA Project Working Group on Transport and Border
Crossing Facilitation.
Building on the success of the Asian Highway Agreement, the UNESCAP
secretariat is currently preparing a draft agreement for the Trans-Asian
Railway. The draft agreement will be discussed in a regional workshop
immediately preceding the Subcommittee on Transport Infrastructure and
Facilitation and Tourism, tentatively scheduled in November this year. We
encourage all ECO members with railways to participate actively in the
development of this Agreement.
We
are aware that ECO has been working with its member countries to develop a
container block-train service between Almaty and Istanbul. We are interested
to explore ways to further cooperate with ECO in this area, including sharing
of experiences and strategies, since UNESCAP has been implementing a project
on developing container block train services along the Trans-Asian Railway
Northern Corridor.
In
the environment area, UNESCAP and UNECE signed, in June this year, in this
city, a Memorandum of Understanding with the International Fund for Saving the
Aral Sea (IFAS) with the IFAS Chairman, who is also the Chairman of this
Summit, H.E. President Rakhmonov. Furthermore, under the auspices of the
United Nations Special Programme for the Economies of Central Asia (SPECA), a
"Cooperation Strategy to Promote the Rational Use of Water and Energy
Resources in Central Asia" has been developed, which covers majority of the
ECO member countries.
Next
year in March, we will organize the Fifth Ministerial Conference on
Environment and Development to be hosted by the Government of the Republic of
Korea in Seoul. The conference will review the progress made in the
implementation of the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation as well as the Phnom
Penh Regional Platform for Sustainable Development in Asia and the Pacific. We
invite the active participation of the economic planning and environment
ministers of all ECO member countries. In this connection, we are organizing,
in cooperation with the ECO secretariat, a sub-regional preparatory meeting to
be held immediately following the 2nd ECO Ministerial Conference on
Environment to be held in Istanbul on 4-6 October 2004.
Excellencies, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen,
It
is said that the twenty-first century is the Asia-Pacific century, with the
region becoming the center of economic growth and technological innovation.
Such economic growth should be environmentally sustainable, and even more
important, should be equitably shared by all countries and sub-regions,
including the countries of the Economic Cooperation Organization. For this to
happen, we must foster regional cooperation and partnerships. Therefore, I
should like to reiterate our desire to enhance and deepen our partnership with
ECO, not only at the secretariat level, but with all the ten countries of this
extremely vital and critically important sub-region. I am convinced that it is
only through such partnerships that we can ensure the attainment of our common
objectives. My prayer is that the coming Asia-Pacific century may also be the
ECO century.
Thank you.
14 September 2004
<http://www.unescap.org/oes/state/st040914.htm>
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