King Mohammed attracts attention to widening gap between rich and poor
Regional-Regional, Politics, 9/15/1999

King Mohammed VI of Morocco on Tuesday attracted the attention to the widening gap between the rich and the poor and stressed that under-development is not inevitable.

This came in a message read out by Abdelaziz Meziane Belfqih, Advisor to the King, before the 9th ministerial meeting of the Group of 77 (G-77) plus China, currently held in the Moroccan southern city of Marrakesh.

The debt burden continues to soak precious resources needed not to finance economic development programs but rather to ensure the survival of an increasingly vulnerable population, the message said.

"Nobody doubts the principles of inter-dependence and solidarity and the joint fight against poverty, because nobody ignores the threats of exclusion and despair for world peace and security," the message went on.

King Mohammed VI also wondered why the developed nations did not stand by their commitment to earmark 0.7 of their DGP to development assistance.

Growth in poor countries cannot be accelerated without a substantial improvement of access to world markets and without an adequate assessment of the real efficiency of the unilateral preferential measures, the King said.

The king further highlighted the risk of a major malfunctioning of the world economy and called for the setting of operational mechanisms to reinforce and guarantee a genuine coherence between the actions, reflections and strategies of all the international organizations in charge of economic, commercial and financial affairs.

"The restructuring of the multilateral institutions becomes in this context a priority and an imperative in order to make them subscribe to a new approach that privileges the principles of equity, solidarity and ethics," King Mohammed VI added.

The 9th ministerial meeting of the G-77 is preparing the 10th summit of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), due next February 10-19 in Bangkok.

The four-day meeting, held under the theme "Globalization: Risks and Chances," is destined to help the G-77 nations coordinate and harmonize their positions regarding key issues related to international trade.

Participants hope that the future negotiations with the Geneva-based World Trade Organization (WTO) focus more on problems facing the developing countries.

The UNCTAD seeks to speed up economic growth and development, especially in developing nations. So far, the UNCTAD organized 9 summits. The latest one was held in South Africa in 1996.

Previous Stories:
  Morocco hosts 9th ministerial conference of G-77   (9/11/1999)
  Lebanon to host Asian meeting of Group of 77   (8/7/1999)
  Moroccan government renews will to alleviate debt burden   (1/6/1999)

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