In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate
Your Excellencies and Highnesses,
Your Excellency, the Secretary-General of the UNCTAD,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I would like to greet and welcome you in Doha, wishing you a pleasant stay. At the outset, I would like to express my deep appreciation to His Excellency Professor John Evans Mills, President of the friendly Republic of Ghana for the effective role his country played during its presidency of the UNCTAD XII.
I would also like to express our appreciation of the efforts of the General Secretariat of the Organization of UNCTAD to achieve the lofty goals of the Organization, and for its effort in coordinating with the State of Qatar to prepare for this conference and to seek its success.
I am pleased to point out here that Doha has become an important venue for conferences that seek to promote development at the global level, and this reflects the consistent interest of the State of Qatar in development issues worldwide. The State of Qatar hosted the Fourth Ministerial Meeting of the World Trade Organization in 2001, which was the beginning of the so-called Doha Round, which put forward an ambitious working program to strengthen the role of trade in the development process. It also hosted the 2nd Summit Conference of the G-77 plus China, which was held in 2005.
This conference has highlighted the vision of developing countries, and worked out an ambitious agenda to reach a global economy for the benefit of all, and called for realizing the Millennium Development Goals in due time.
The State of Qatar has also hosted an international conference in 2008 on financing development, with the aim of addressing the challenges obstructing the course of development in developing countries.
We meet today at the Thirteenth United Nations Conference on Trade and Development which is held during events that posed numerous and significant economic and political challenges and crises in the world after the UNCTAD XII held in Accra, Ghana in 2008. I would like to focus here on a number of points related to the themes of the conference:
First: The economic crisis which hit the world since the beginning of 2008, which led to what was called the great economic recession, was one of the most important events which followed the last UNCTAD conference. Although this recession officially ended in mid-2009, the crisis is still casting a shadow on the global economy and on the economic developments expected in 2012 and possibly 2013. In January 2012 the World Bank reduced its projections for global growth expected in 2012, and this reduction included EU countries and the major developed countries such as the United States, Japan and South Korea. These developments also started to negatively affect, but to a lesser degree, the emerging developing countries such as Brazil, India, Turkey and South Africa.
The global economy actual results could be worse than these expectations because the problem of the public debt in the euro zone has not been addressed, but has been postponed.
The fiscal policy in the United States of America is held hostage to ideological differences between Republicans and Democrats, and policies of other countries that rely entirely on export are still in need of developing a new relationship between export and domestic consumption to achieve economic growth.
The global economic crisis has delayed the development process in most countries, especially the least developed countries. It also increased unemployment in these countries, brought misery to millions of people and led to fundamental changes in some countries. So tackling this crisis is the biggest challenge facing globalization, which is based mainly on trade and development.
This crisis was the outcome of fundamental imbalances in the economic and financial systems, institutions and policies which were not tackled in spite of all efforts made to achieve that at the level of the States concerned, individually or collectively. Efforts to introduce fundamental reforms into the global financial order which triggered the global economic crisis must be enhanced, for globalization not to become a barrier to economic development.
It is essential here that the reform process is based on humanitarian principles that put public interest before personal interest, and fight against greed and gambling with other people’s money.
Second: Sustainable economic and social development, attracting and encouraging investment as well as promoting international trade, require domestic stability, since instability in some Arab countries, which is reflected by what is called the Arab Spring uprisings, was caused not only by poverty, youth unemployment, and disparity in regional development in most cases, but also by other reasons, namely, oppression policies, lack of popular participation in economic and social decision-making, corruption, lack of equal opportunities, and enriching a small group of regime figures and major businessmen at the expense of the majority of the people. It has been proved that the economic policies driven by the short-term political interest of rulers, and those motivated by the economic interests of their entourage, and not by the interests of the State and society are catastrophic policies with disastrous consequences. Internal stability cannot be achieved under such conditions, since its realization requires enabling the peoples to express their choices and aspirations in a free manner and to respect all their legitimate rights.
We hope that after the difficult transitional stages the Arab countries would reach their economic choices based on democratic options, and that would be in favour of the States, communities and the region, and will have positive impacts at the global scale. But before that, the transitional stages must be organized on the basis of agreed upon principles by the effective social political forces so as to lead the Arab Spring countries to safety and make them a role model for others.
They need our economic assistance and support in the transitional stages that precede the achievement of these economic plans.
Arab peoples took to the streets for their dignity and freedom and they paid, and are still paying dear for them. We are confident that great nations with such determination would achieve their objectives and usher in their desired future.
The success of development efforts and the evolution of relations of commercial cooperation between different countries require a global climate where justice, security and stability prevail, because the worsening of the tension and conflicts, and the lingering of a number of international issues without final settlement significantly hinder the achievement of peace and development.
Third: There is still a fundamental difference between developing countries on one hand and the countries of the European Union and the United States on the other hand as to export subsidies for agricultural products. We have seen that when Doha hosted the Fourth Ministerial Meeting of the World Trade Organization, and in the negotiations which were not finalized in the Doha Round.
I hope that this conference would act to bridge the gap between the two parties in this area and to reach final agreement on other issues on facilitating and improving the environment for international trade. The opening of developed countries markets to the products of developing countries and refraining from protectionist policies - whether explicit or implicit - are essential to strengthen the potential of these countries for production and marketing, and help developing countries in their efforts to achieve sustainable development.
Fourth: The developing and least developed countries could not realize its goals unless they perceive trade and development from a broader perspective and without opting for hard action to move from an economy based on the export of raw materials to a diversified economy depending on developing human potentials and improving industries and services where they can excel. This is not an easy matter, and requires the following:
- Formulating development strategies in line with the general economic objectives of these countries, and creating an investment climate for encouraging national and foreign capital.
- Close cooperation among countries of the South in order to increase intertrade, promote integration, and enhance research and development.
- The availability of an international environment characterized by cooperation in order to create a more just and balanced partnership, and to narrow the economic gap between countries. This requires the developed countries to maintain allocating a percentage of their gross domestic product for poor countries as previously agreed upon, and help to open money markets to finance investments in developing countries.
The State of Qatar adopts these requirements and is working to achieve them in the best possible way, whether that is related to the compliance of its national strategy with its general economic objective, creating a stimulating investment climate for domestic and foreign capital, extending aid to the poorest developing countries, or contributing to the global partnership for development.
Fifth: While 2015 is the date set for achieving the Millennium Development Goals, we should start from now formulating and identifying new development objectives beyond 2015, which take into account the new events and developments and aim at achieving peace, development and prosperity for all.
These are some of the points that we wished to expose, and we are confident that your deliberations with the qualitative participation of experts and specialists would contribute to enriching the topics of the conference.
Finally, we hope that the outcome of this important conference would contribute to enhancing the role of UNCTAD in fulfilling the aspirations of our peoples towards the achievement of sustainable development.
Thank you. May peace and blessing of Allah be upon you.