Dhaka urges donors to give 'focussed' aid to LDCs
Wednesday, 26 September 2007
FE Report
Bangladesh has urged major donors to extend "focussed" aid to the less developed nations, enabling them to prepare groundworks for increased trade and derive the benefits of globalisation.
"Donors' money should be forthcoming particularly in the area of infrastructure, such as roads, ports, power and telecommunications," commerce secretary Feroz Ahmed said referring to the just-concluded Manila conference on aid for trade.
"This type of aid should be channelised as additional resources, not as reallocation from the existing funds provided by the multilateral lenders," Ahmed told the FE.
At the December 2005 WTO Hong Kong Ministerial Conference where Aid for Trade Initiative was launched, major donors pledged around $15 billion for the purpose.
Dhaka made the appeal at a two-day conference "Mobilising Aid for Trade: Focus Asia and Pacific", co-hosted by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the Philippine government.
"We made it abundantly clear that successful completion of the Doha round will help smaller economies, but they do not have the capacity or infrastructure to reap the benefits from global trade," the country's top trade official said.
"Aid for trade will help us to strengthen our capacities through outward market-oriented reforms to participate in the process of globalisation," he added.
In addition, Ahmed noted that the world's wealthy nations needed to provide aid for the poorer countries like Bangladesh to help them recoup losses from trade liberalisation.
Highlighting major outcomes of the conference, commerce secretary said global and regional trade and finance officials agreed on key measures to harness trade as "an engine of growth" and help minimise development gaps in the region.
"We've also underscored the need for mapping out an appropriate Aid for Trade strategy, given the diversity in economic structures in Asia and the Pacific," Ahmed pointed out.
Trade-related issues should be the core of national policies and it should be underpinned by support from the private sector, he suggested.
Finance adviser Mirza Azizul Islam, who led the Bangladesh delegation to Manila, urged the fellow less developed countries to identify a few key priorities that are pivotal to increasing exports and which can deliver higher returns on investment.
He also underscored the need for predictability and accessibility of financing to help the small and weak economies in the region to build capacity and remove the bottlenecks that hurt growth.
The donors conceded that public-private partnership will play a crucial role in achieving the desired goal of helping the small and weak states to gain from trade, spur economic growth and alleviate poverty.
They also agreed that national governments, regional multilateral banks, donors, financial institutions, global institutions and private sector have to coordinate effectively to make good on the Aid for Trade initiative.
Representatives from the World Bank, Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, AusAid, and governments of Japan and New Zealand attended the conference.
Bangladesh has urged major donors to extend "focussed" aid to the less developed nations, enabling them to prepare groundworks for increased trade and derive the benefits of globalisation.
"Donors' money should be forthcoming particularly in the area of infrastructure, such as roads, ports, power and telecommunications," commerce secretary Feroz Ahmed said referring to the just-concluded Manila conference on aid for trade.
"This type of aid should be channelised as additional resources, not as reallocation from the existing funds provided by the multilateral lenders," Ahmed told the FE.
At the December 2005 WTO Hong Kong Ministerial Conference where Aid for Trade Initiative was launched, major donors pledged around $15 billion for the purpose.
Dhaka made the appeal at a two-day conference "Mobilising Aid for Trade: Focus Asia and Pacific", co-hosted by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the Philippine government.
"We made it abundantly clear that successful completion of the Doha round will help smaller economies, but they do not have the capacity or infrastructure to reap the benefits from global trade," the country's top trade official said.
"Aid for trade will help us to strengthen our capacities through outward market-oriented reforms to participate in the process of globalisation," he added.
In addition, Ahmed noted that the world's wealthy nations needed to provide aid for the poorer countries like Bangladesh to help them recoup losses from trade liberalisation.
Highlighting major outcomes of the conference, commerce secretary said global and regional trade and finance officials agreed on key measures to harness trade as "an engine of growth" and help minimise development gaps in the region.
"We've also underscored the need for mapping out an appropriate Aid for Trade strategy, given the diversity in economic structures in Asia and the Pacific," Ahmed pointed out.
Trade-related issues should be the core of national policies and it should be underpinned by support from the private sector, he suggested.
Finance adviser Mirza Azizul Islam, who led the Bangladesh delegation to Manila, urged the fellow less developed countries to identify a few key priorities that are pivotal to increasing exports and which can deliver higher returns on investment.
He also underscored the need for predictability and accessibility of financing to help the small and weak economies in the region to build capacity and remove the bottlenecks that hurt growth.
The donors conceded that public-private partnership will play a crucial role in achieving the desired goal of helping the small and weak states to gain from trade, spur economic growth and alleviate poverty.
They also agreed that national governments, regional multilateral banks, donors, financial institutions, global institutions and private sector have to coordinate effectively to make good on the Aid for Trade initiative.
Representatives from the World Bank, Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, AusAid, and governments of Japan and New Zealand attended the conference.