Marrakesh, 13 Sept (Martin Khor) -- The ninth Ministerial Meeting of the Group of 77 and China begins here Tuesday, with an expected 80 developing countries taking part in what is to be the culmination of the G77's process to prepare for the tenth session of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD X) to be
held next February in Thailand.
The Ministerial Meeting was preceded by a senior officials meeting Monday.
Regional meetings of G77 members from Asia, Africa and Latin America and Caribbean have been held over the last few weeks, and the inputs from these meetings are being discussed at Marrakesh one.
The officials' meeting has the task of finalising the following documents which will be the main products of the Ministerial Conference:
The Marrakesh Document, a 38-paragraph document which the Ministers will issue;Message of the G77 Ministers to the Third WTO Ministerial Conference;Ministerial Statement on Economic cooperation among Developing Countries (ECDC)Besides these three documents, the Ministerial Meeting will also approve a Plan of Action which the G77's preparatory committee for UNCTAD X has prepared.
This Plan of Action is to be submitted by the G77 to the Trade and Development Board at its 46th session (in October) as the G77's proposal for the basic document for the pre-Conference text for UNCTAD X.
The Ministerial meet will also approve a Draft Bangkok Consensus prepared by the G77 preparatory committee, and transmit it to the Trade and Development Board as the G77's proposal to prepare for the UNCTAD X text.
At the opening ceremony of the senior officials' meeting Monday morning, UNCTAD Secretary-general Rubens Ricupero said it was important to remember that the Group of 77 (and China) was born inside UNCTAD.
In the early 1960s, both UNCTAD and the G77 were born as an expression of the same feelings of countries that achieved Independence and became aware of their basic unity of problems in trying to cope with the development challenge.
"History," Ricupero said, "has helped us understand that the diversity of the Group should be a source, not of weakness, but strength, and the knowledge that we represent the majority of humankind."
Ricupero said there was both a crisis of development and of globalisation.
"There is a crisis of development exactly because there is a crisis of globalisation.Globalisation did not give support to developing countries to avoid crisis."
He said that for the first time in more than a decade, developing countries last year had a growth rate less than that of industrial countries. Whilst the latter grew by 2.2 percent, developing countries grew only 1.7 per cent and, excluding China, their growth was only 0.7 percent.
Ricupero said this was an extremely grave situation as development was meant to narrow the gap. If developing countries do not grow faster, then "we will be condemned to seek another vision of the problem of development."
He said there was danger in the complacency and relief being expressed that the crisis is over.
"But are the causes of crisis removed, are the problems of financial crisis addressed, and are we really out of the woods?" he asked.
Also at the opening ceremony, Ambassador Samuel R. Insanally of Guyana, chair of the G77 in New York, said globalisation had made poverty more pervasive and countries more marginalised.
"We need urgently to construct a new development paradigm," he said.
Insanally said that in the forthcoming trade negotiations, developing countries must guard against making concessions that are not matched by industrial countries, and must insist on operationalising special and differential treatment principles.
"If perchance there is a new round, it must be truly a Development Round."
Although the G77 Meeting here is directly meant to provide a political platform for the G77's preparations for UNCTAD X, in actual fact the shadow of the WTO's forthcoming Ministerial Conference in Seattle is dominating the minds and corridor discussions so far.
The Marrakesh meeting is an opportunity for G77 countries' senior officials from capitals and diplomats from Geneva to exchange views and latest information on the WTO negotiations.