Vienna Chapter
Mr. President,
1. On behalf of the Group of 77 and China, I have the pleasure to
extend to you sincere congratulations on your election as President of the
9th session of the General Conference and to the members of the bureau. We
are confident that your experience and abilities will assist you to steer
the work of this General Conference to a successful conclusion. Please be
assured of our full support. Permit me also to express our appreciation to
H.E. Mr. Shauket Umer of Pakistan, the President of the 8th session of the
General Conference and his bureau for the able manner in which they
conducted the work of the session.
2. We wish to thank Mr. Carlos Magariños the Director-General
of UNIDO for his opening remarks. At the same time, the Group would like
to commend the Secretariat, for the timely preparation of the Conference
documents and the organization of the very useful informal pre-sessional
consultations.
3. The G-77 and China would like to express its support of the
decision adopted during the 24th session of the Industrial Development
Board, held in June this year recommending to this session of the General
Conference that Mr. Carlos Magariños is appointed for another term
of office as Director-General of UNIDO. The General Conference's
endorsement of this decision can certainly be considered an expression of
confidence by Member States in his leadership of our Organisation.
4. The Group welcomes South Africa to UNIDO as the 169th Member
State. We hope that efforts to attract more new Member States will
continue. We also hope that former Member States will rejoin the
Organization. We are convinced that the ideals of the Organization and the
successful reforms should give additional impetus to facilitate such a
decision. UNIDO deserves the confidence of the international community as
a specialised agency dealing with industrialization matters.
Mr. President,
5. On the occasion of the 9th General Conference of UNIDO, the Group
of 77 and China wish to once again call upon the international community
to reaffirm its commitment to the Millennium Declaration and urge all
Member States to fully and speedily implement the provisions set out in
that Declaration, in particular those related to set development targets
so as to achieve the goal of poverty eradication. We have observed UNIDO's
increased participation in various foras like the Havana Summit, LDC's III
and IFCC-X, and the plan to participate in the International Conference on
Financing for Development to be held in Monterrey, Mexico. We therefore
urge the Organisation to ensure that the necessary following-up of the
decisions and recommendations of these fora are undertaken. UNIDO's role
at these meetings is to emphasise the urgent need of strengthening the
industrial capacities of the developing countries in order to meet the
challenge of globalisation.
6. The Group of 77 and China is of the view that the Industrial
Development Forum to be held during this General Conference under the
theme "Fighting marginalisation through sustainable industrial
development: Challenges and opportunities in a globalising world"
will be another effort in the search for ways through which UNIDO and
developing countries could gradually integrate into the world economy, in
order to reverse the process of marginalisation.
7. The Group of 77 and China considered the document GC.9/10
entitled: Financial Situation of UNIDO. We are concerned with the decrease
in the collection rate of assessed contributions from 77% in 2000 to 62.2%
in 2001, and that 55 Member States have lost their voting rights. We also
observe that the current cash balance of 16.1 million US$ is lower then
the level of 19.4 million US$ in 2000, a situation which is not
encouraging. However, the Group notes with satisfaction the increase in
the collection rate of previous years arrears to 16.5% in 2001 against
11.4% in 2000. We wish to call upon all Member States who are in arrears
to settle their assessed contributions as soon as possible, and pay their
current assessment on time and in full.
Mr. President,
8. In this regard, the Group of 77 and China wishes to express its
support for the proposal of the Government of Ukraine of the payment plan
as contained in document GC.9/9, particularly by reducing the number of
years during which instalments would be paid, from 15 to 10 years.
Therefore the Group of 77 and China urge the General Conference to
consider Ukraine's request positively. We welcome the negotiations with
several Member States to reach agreements on payment plans, and encourage
the Director-General to continue his efforts to address the issue of
arrears with current and former members of the Organization.
9. The Group expressed its concern at the 17th session of the PBC and
at the 24th session of the IDB, the reduction in regard to the reduction
in programmes C and D, as contained in the Programme Budget for 2002-2003.
These programmes which represent the principal activities of the
Organization should not have been reduced. Nevertheless, in the spirit of
consensus the Group supported the IDB decision to recommend to the General
Conference the adoption of the Programme and Budget. We therefore urge all
Member States to join this consensus.
10. It is the hope of the Group of 77 and China that the
consultations being undertaken by the President of the 24th IDB, H.E.
Ambassador Hosseini of the Isalamic Republic of Iran will enable the
General Conference to resolve the issues pending from the IDB particularly
the Programme and Budget 2002-2003 and the scale of assessment. On the
Scale of Assessment we would like to reiterate our position to retain the
status quo with the maximum ceiling of 25%. We are convinced that this
position will ensure stability and strengthen the financial situation of
the Organisation.
11. On the medium term programme framework which reviewed the
implementation of the Business Plan of 1997 for the Organisation, the G-77
and China, accepts the need for continued review and fine tuning of the
Business Plan. We are satisfied with the broad outlines set for the
Organisation in 1997 and that any minor adjustment taking into account the
realities of the globalised world, should not detract from UNIDO's main
role of providing technical co-operation to developing countries.
Mr. President,
12. The Director-General and the Secretariat have implemented the
reforms approved at the 7th session of the General Conference in December
1997. As a result, the Organisation has transformed its programme
delivery, work methods and administration. We therefore urge the
Director-General to ensure the complementarities between the Technical
Co-operation and the Global Forum activities. While recognizing the
relevance of the Global Forum activities, the G-77 and China is of the
view that these activities should result in strengthening and improving
the technical cooperation programme, particularly through the expansion
and diversification of productive activities and new technologies so as to
lower the level of unemployment, reduce poverty, bridge the gap between
developed and developing countries and alleviate the risk of
marginalization.
13. We welcome the integrated approach in preparing the technical
cooperation programme, particularly its demand oriented nature, which has
improved the efficiency and effectiveness of technical cooperation
delivery. However, we are concerned that sufficient resources are not
available to implement the already approved and on-going programmes. We
call upon Member States, the donor community and the Secretariat to
jointly enhance the effectiveness of fund mobilization.
14. Mr. President, we realize the need to protect and preserve the
environment during industrial promotion activities. We therefore share the
view that UNIDO should continue to include environment related activities
as a component in the technical co-operation programmes.
15. The Group of 77 and China is aware that effective
decentralisation is important to the Organisation but has not been fully
implemented due to lack of adequate resources. We therefore urge Member
States, in particular major donors to provide support and assistance to
enhance UNIDO's field representation.
16. Furthermore, the Group wishes to urge the Secretariat to continue
to apply the principle of equitable geographical distribution in personnel
policy, particularly at the professional level. We also strongly support
the issue of gender balance at all levels of the Secretariat, especially
at the Directors level, in conformity with the UN system. In addition, the
Group wishes to reiterate its call to the Secretariat to distribute
vacancy announcements to the Member States at least two months before the
application deadline, to provide Member States adequate time to respond to
the vacancies.
17. Mr. President, the Group of 77 and China supports the resolution
adopted by the Conference of African Ministers of Industry (CAMI) at its
15th session, which among other things highlighted the importance of the
private sector as well as national and foreign private investments in the
industrialization of Africa. Similarly, the Group wishes to express its
appreciation to the Director-General for submitting the report entitled "Participation
of the Private Sector in the Industrialisation of Africa", and
encourage UNIDO to continue to enhance the participation of the private
sector in the industrialization of Africa.
18. The Group takes note of the report of the Director-General on the
industrialisation of the least developed countries and wishes to commend
the Secretariat's efforts and participation in the Conference held in
Brussels from 14 to 20 May 2001. We are of the view that the realisation
of the goals of the Programme of Action will improve the living conditions
of people of these countries.
Finally, Mr. President,
19. The Group is of the view that the role of industry as a provider
of employment and as a contributor to economic development should continue
to be of importance to the developing countries, particularly the LDCs. We
would therefore like to seize this opportunity to reiterate our full
support to the Organisation and its predominant role in laying the
foundation for sustainable industrial development in our countries. We
also believe that the reforms undertaken by UNIDO place it in more
favourable conditions to implement its mandate and urge all Member States
to increase their political commitment and financial resources to the
Organization.
Thank you Mr. President.
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