..Press Release................................ UNESCAP News Services

Date 18 May 2007
Press Release No. L/19/2007/CS63/12

Sixty-third session of ESCAP
Almaty, Kazakhstan
18 May 2007

REMARKS BY MR. KIM HAK-SU, UNITED NATIONS UNDER-SECRETARY-GENEREAL, AND EXECUTIVE SECRETARY OF UNESCAP, AT INFORMAL CONSULTATION WITH DELEGATIONS OF THE COUNTRIES WITH ECONOMIES IN TRANSITION

63rd session of the UNESCAP
Almaty, Kazakhstan, 09:00 hours, Friday, 18 May 2007

Note: Countries participated – Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Russian Federation, and Turkmenistan

Excellencies,
Distinguished Delegates,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

I would like to welcome you to this special informal consultation. As you may know, the first informal consultative meeting of the Executive Secretary of UNESCAP and the delegations from the countries with economies in transition was held 15 years ago when the Commission recommended the inclusion of the Central Asian countries as members of the Commission and adopted the resolution on “Problems faced by the transitional disadvantaged economies in the ESCAP region”. Since then, the informal consultative meetings have become an important forum for articulating the specific needs of countries with economies in transition in the UNESCAP region. In addition to reviewing the current technical cooperation assistance to your countries, the consultative meetings have also tracked the countries’ changing priorities and challenges. The most important new challenges faced by the member countries of UNESCAP with economies in transition are achieving MDGs, accession to WTO, transport facilitation, environmental sustainability, digital divide, and strengthening economic cooperation.

ACHIEVING MDGs

Under the MDG project implemented jointly by UNESCAP, UNDP and ADB, several activities were undertaken in the reporting period to assist the countries concerned in achieving MDGs. These consisted of organizing and conducting several subregional stakeholders forums for preparing subregional action plans for achieving MDGs, undertaking analytical studies on national MDG strategies to identify regional policy actions needed to complement national efforts and preparing a regional road map for achieving MDGs. Cambodia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Mongolia, and Viet Nam participated at the East and South-East Asia MDG Forum held in Hanoi in March this year. The Central Asian, Caucasian countries and the Russian Federation are expected to participate in North and Central Asia MDG Forum to be held in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan in the near future. UNESCAP implemented a number of projects in the countries with economies in transition to educate key MDG data users in evidence-based policy making to achieve MDGs.

ACCESSION TO WTO

Regarding accession to WTO, I would like to extend my heartfelt congratulations to Viet Nam for having acceded to the WTO as its 150th member. I also wish to encourage those countries not yet members of the WTO to accelerate their accessions in order to benefit from the same set of trade rules, as well as to benefit from a likely successful conclusion of the Doha Round. UNESCAP and its partner agencies stand ready to assist your countries in this matter. In particular, UNESCAP and UNECE are finalizing funding arrangements for a joint project on WTO accession, including the establishment of an informal forum on accession for SPECA countries.

I am pleased to inform you that today and tomorrow, the Asia-Pacific Business Forum will take place during the Commission session under the theme: “At the crossroads between Asia and Europe: harnessing the possibilities of Central Asia”. The discussions will certainly highlight the challenges and opportunities for Central Asia in achieving its great potential as the crossroads between Asia and Europe, and I urge all of you to participate in the Forum.

TRANSPORT FACILITATION

In the area of transport, I wish to report to you that since the last informal consultative meeting held in 2006, two more regional economies in transition, namely, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, became parties to the Intergovernmental Agreement on the Asian Highway Network. Six countries with economies in transition, have signed the Intergovernmental Agreement on the Trans-Asian Railway Network at a special ceremony held during the Busan Ministerial Conference on Transport in November 2006.
All economies in transition are covered by the UNESCAP initiative on developing an Integrated Transport Planning Model (ITPM), a policy planning tool to be used to forecast transport infrastructure requirements and intermodal transport flows in the region.

GREEN GROWTH

All the countries with economies in transition have been involved and interested in the so-called “green growth” initiative since its inception by UNESCAP at the Ministerial Conference held in the Republic of Korea in 2005. All of them are active members of the Seoul Initiative Network on Green Growth (SINGG) and have regularly attended the network and policy meetings, including Green Growth Policy Dialogues and capacity building workshops held in the reporting period. UNESCAP assisted the host country of this Commission session, Kazakhstan, by providing expert advice on how to include elements of the environmentally sustainable economic growth approach in the National Sustainable Development Strategy, which was approved by the Parliament of the country in January this year.

DIGITAL DIVIDE

While many member countries of UNESCAP have demonstrated impressive growth in the use of information, communication and space technologies, ICSTs, the pace among the countries with economies in transition remains moderate. In order to bridge the gap, UNESCAP intensified its efforts to raise awareness and build capacity among policy- and decision-makers to effectively plan, implement and evaluate ICST applications for poverty reduction as well as foster the growth of ICST industry for social and economic development, creating employment and business opportunities, while promoting regional cooperation in this area. The emphasis is placed on how to maximize the use of ICST for rural development and empower socially disadvantaged groups, such as women and youth.

SPECA

With regard to the SPECA Programme, the focus of UNESCAP’s activities was the implementation of the SPECA reform, following the UN Secretary-General’s recommendation to strengthen the Programme. In 2006, SPECA activities were coordinated by UNESCAP and the secretariat played a leading role in the organization of the first SPECA Economic Forum and the first meeting of the Governing Council in Baku, Azerbaijan, as well as the SPECA Coordinating Committee in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.

As mentioned earlier, the Asia-Pacific Business Forum will be held during this Commission session. It will be the first meeting of the SPECA Economic Forum scheduled to be held this year with the main focus on Asia. The second meeting on: “Central Asia and Europe: a new economic partnership for the 21st Century”, co-organized with the Government of Germany, will take place in November this year in Berlin. The main objectives of the twin forums are to map shared or coinciding interests of the main economic partners of Central Asia to improve the business and investment climate in the region.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

Distinguished Delegates,

This is the first time that our informal consultative meeting takes place in a country with a transitional economy, Kazakhstan. I would like to use this opportunity to call upon the delegations from the countries with economies in transition to provide UNESCAP with advice and suggestions on how our future consultative meetings should be arranged and what focus the meetings should have. I would also appreciate your comments on issues of common concern in order to direct the secretariat’s attention to further technical assistance to your countries.

Thank you.