Mar 20, 1985
UNITED NATION: URUGUAYAN ELECTED PRESIDENT OF TRADE BOARD.
GENEVA, MARCH 18 (IFDA)— The Trade and Development Board of the UNCTAD began its two-week 30th session Monday, with the election of Amb. Julio Lacarte Muro of Uruguay as its President.The board also elected Adikwu F. Okoh of Nigeria as the rapporteur. Earlier, the outgoing president, Manzur Ahmad of Pakistan, underlined that the Board was meeting in an international economic situation, characterised by recovery and growth in a few industrial countries but persisting uncertainties and serious difficulties in the Third World. Striking a similar note, Lacarte said despite the recovery, the crisis was by no means over. Industrial countries were still to overcome unemployment, inadequate investments and internal protectionist pressures. The countries of the Third World continued to face economic stagnation, fall in commodity prices, external indebtedness, and severe limitations in their access to industrial markets. All this had resulted in slowing down their development process and increasing the pressures on their economic, political and social systems. The world economic problems, Lacarte said, should not be an impediment but a stimulus to creative thinking and for rebirth of dynamic international cooperation in areas of common interest. The agenda before the board, apart from the general issue of interdependence of issues and economies, includes the subjects of protectionism and structural adjustment, and the review of the implementation of the 1978 UNCTAD Ministerial decisions on the official development assistance debt of the poorer countries.