Rich Countries Urged to Adjust Policies Toward Poor Nations

China has urged developed countries to adjust their policies in an international effort to support the poorest nations to narrow the widening gap of living standards in the world of globalization.

"We would like to appeal to the international community, in particular the developed countries, who benefit the most from globalization, to reevaluate relevant policies, undertake more international obligations and transform their concerns on the least developed countries (LDCs) into forceful and effective actions," Sun Guangxiang, vice minister of China's foreign trade and economic cooperation ministry, said in Brussels Tuesday.

Developing countries should also make every endeavor to provide support and aid to the LDCs in whatever forms through the channel of South-South Cooperation, said Sun at the third United Nations Conference on the LDCs, which is being held here on May 14-20.

When addressing the current situation in the southern hemisphere, the Chinese official said the globalization process has failed to bring the LDCs the benefit they once anticipated, but only made them more vulnerable to further marginalization.

"At the same time, the social problems of the LDCs have been piling up, issues such as poverty, unemployment, low education level, political unrest and natural disasters have become the bottleneck in the development of the LDCs," Sun said.

Recalling the international efforts for the poorest countries in recent years, Sun said there came out a series of plans and measures after mountainous dialogue and negotiations in the international community. However, those plans always ended up with little action, he said.

"It is fair to say that the implementation of the Program of Action for the Least Developed Countries for the 1990s is not satisfactory, with not many goals being fulfilled," the Chinese trade official told heads of state and representatives from 49 poorest countries around the world and officials from both developed and developing countries as well as international organizations, social groups and companies.

"However, we still place our hopes on the conference. We hope that it could create a new Program of Action, which is of profound political significance and high feasibility, so as to inject new vitality into the international cooperation for the LDCs," he said.

Two previous U.N. conferences on the LDCs -- in Paris in 1981 and 1990 -- produced programs of action intended to improve the living conditions of the world's poor. The 1990 conference called on rich countries to step up aid.

However, the number of desperately poor countries has almost doubled during the past 30 years from 25 to 49. In inflation- adjusted per capita terms, net official development aid to the poorest countries dropped by 45 percent during the 1990s, according to U.N. statistics.

(People's Daily 05/16/2001)