|Statement by Ambassador Liu Zhenmin at the General Debate of the Second Committee of the 64th Session of the UN General Assembly|
Statement by Ambassador Liu Zhenmin
Deputy Permanent Representative of China to the United Nations
At the General Debate of the Second Committee
Of the 64th Session of the United Nations General Assembly
New York, 5 October 2009
At the outset, I congratulate you on assuming chairmanship of the Second Committee. The Chinese Delegation will cooperate closely with you and the presidium to make the work of the Committee a complete success. China endorses the statement made by Sudan on behalf of the Group of 77 and China.
The world is still in the grip of the financial crisis. The prospects for world economic recovery are still not clear. Many uncertainties still exist and a comprehensive recovery will be a slow and tortuous process. At the same time, issues such as climate change, food security and energy security have been thrown into sharp relief. With the frequent outbreak of diseases and natural disasters, and the rise of unemployed and poverty population on the globe, the development of the world is confronted with unprecedented difficulties and challenges. The gap between the North and South and that between the rich and poor continues to widen. The external development environment of developing countries has worsened. The implementation of the MDGs is faced with serious challenges.
In the face of this unprecedented "development crisis", the international community must attach greater importance and give top priority to the issue of development, and continue to promote development through cooperation. Governments should build on their political consensus, strengthen the global development partnership and translate their consensus and commitments into action. The international community, especially developed countries, should increase development assistance, lower artificial barriers to technology transfer, and help developing countries enhance their capacity for sustainable development. The United Nations should increase its input in development, and strive to create a favorable international environment for the economic development of developing countries. Developing countries should continue to enhance their ability to independent development and explore growth modes commensurate with their national conditions.
The primary task of the international community now is to address the global financial crisis, and push for a robust recovery of the world economy. Parties concerned need to take effective measures to continue to push for the recovery of their own economies and to promote the reform of the international financial architecture, and put emphasis on increasing the representation and voices of developing countries in international financial institutions. The international community should improve the international mechanism that promotes balanced development, facilitate the World Bank to increase development resources and strengthen its capacity for poverty reduction and development, urge the IMF to establish an efficient and effective financial relief mechanism and give top priority to the least developed countries in provision of financial support. The large amount of capital raised by the G20 Summit should first and foremost be used to resolve the issue of development imbalances, and scale up the assistance to developing countries.
In tackling the financial crisis, the international community should firmly oppose and resist all forms of trade protectionism, safeguard the equitable, free and open global trade and investment system, and continue to commit not to impose new restrictive measures against commodities, investment and services. A failed Doha round of negotiations is not conducive to the orderly operation of international trade, nor does it contribute to steady development of the world economy. There can be no winners. Countries therefore should make concerted efforts to build on the existing mandates and accomplishments of the Doha round, and ensure that it will achieve its goal as a development round at an early date.
Climate change has profound implications for human survival and development. Tackling climate change involves the common interests of the whole world. During the climate change summit convened on September 22nd this year, leaders all committed to make vigorous efforts to address the issue. The international community should build on the political consensus achieved during the summit,
adopt a responsible approach to each country and the entire humanity, and endeavor to make the Copenhagen conference a success．The international community should, on the road to Copenhagen, act in keeping with the UNFCCC and its Kyoto Protocol as the primary channel to address climate change, and adhere to the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and the mandate of the Bali Roadmap, strive for mutual benefit and win-win progress and work together to create a better future for the generations to come.
The food crisis that has occurred since last year dealt a heavy blow to developing countries, the least developed countries in particular. It deserves the high vigilance and attention of the international community. Food bears on the livelihood, development and stability of countries．Parties concerned should take the issue of agriculture and food more seriously, strengthen cooperation and strive to address the issue through an integrated approach. While promoting the global economic recovery, the international community should increase its input in agriculture, develop advanced technologies, resist market speculation, strengthen agricultural cooperation, and improve global food output. While respecting the decision making power of developing countries, developed countries and international organizations should provide more agricultural assistance to developing countries, especially the least developed countries, in terms of finance, technology, market and human resources.
The Chinese people just celebrated the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. Over the past six decades, especially for 30 years since the inception of reform and opening up, China has formulated and implemented on the basis of its national conditions a development strategy of Chinese characteristics and achieved some success in its development. On the other hand, we are soberly aware that, as a developing country with a large population, China is still confronted with the task of speeding up its own development. China still has a long way to go before it is able to build a higher level of moderately prosperous society that brings benefits to 1.3 billion people and achieve common prosperity for all the Chinese people.
The Chinese government puts great emphasis on the country's economic and social development across the board. In light of China's national conditions, we consistently push for a scientific development that is people-oriented, comprehensive, coordinated and sustainable. China has made a clear-cut commitment to a major strategy of developing ecological civilization. We stay firm to the basic state policy of conserving resources and protecting the environment, and stick to the path of sustainable development. Since the outbreak of the international financial crisis, China has unveiled a series of policy measures to expand domestic demand, adjust the economic structure, promote growth and improve people's livelihood. Initial results have been achieved in this regard. In the first half of this year, China's GDP increased by 7.1 % year-on-year, making contribution to the recovery of the world economy.
China has always made promotion of common development an important part of its foreign policy. To consolidate and strengthen solidarity and cooperation with developing countries has always been a starting point of China's foreign policy. At present, though China itself is still under the severe impact of the financial crisis, it remains committed to following through on the measures to assist Africa announced at the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation. Under the framework of South-South cooperation, China will continue to provide assistance to other developing countries to the best of its ability, including grant, debt relief and trade-oriented assistance.
China will continue to work with the rest of the international community to address the crisis, push for the achievement of the MDGs as expected.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.