Morocco takes over G77 chairmanship

Morocco will take over from Venezuela the chairmanship of G77 plus China at a ceremony this week in New York.

Moroccan Foreign Affairs and Cooperation Minister, Mohamed Benaissa, is expected in New York on Thursday to attend the ceremony, the Moroccan Foreign department said in a release.

Benaissa will have talks in the fringes of the ceremony with the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, and with other UN officials.

Morocco was elected to the chairmanship of G77 plus China for 2003, during a Group's meeting convened on November 19.

In this capacity, Morocco will lead the Group and speak on its behalf during all UN meetings dealing with economic and social matters.

The Group of 77 (G-77) was established in 1964 by seventy-seven developing countries signatories of the "Joint Declaration of the Seventy-Seven Countries" issued at the end of the first session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in Geneva.

Beginning with the first Ministerial Meeting of the Group of 77 in Algiers in 1967 which adopted the Charter of Algiers, a permanent institutional structure gradually developed which led to the creation of Chapters of the Group of 77 in Rome (FAO), Vienna (UNIDO), Paris (UNESCO), Nairobi (UNEP) and the Group of 24 in Washington, D.C. (IMF and World Bank).

Although the membership of the G-77 has increased to 133 countries plus China, the original name was retained because of its historic significance.

As the largest Third World coalition in the United Nations, the Group of 77 provides the means for the developing world to articulate and promote its collective economic interests and enhance its joint negotiating capacity on all major international economic issues in the United Nations system, and promote economic and technical cooperation among developing countries.