G-77 winds up works in Marrakesh

The Group of 77 (G-77) plus China wound up Thursday in Morocco its 9th ministerial meeting with the adoption of five economic and strategic documents.

The documents are an action plan of the G-77 preparatory committee for the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), a draft Bangkok Consensus, a document on South-South cooperation, a Marrakesh ministerial declaration and a message of the G-77 ministers to the WTO ministerial council meeting in Seattle.

The G-77 ministerial meeting also decided to request the preparatory committee to start negotiations with other regional groupings and countries part of the preparations of the coming UNCTAD conference.

Addressing the closing session, Moroccan Prime Minister Abderrahmane Youssoufi called for renovating the mechanisms and policies governing the world economy to face up the challenges of globalization.

"Globalization, which is inevitable, should not leave free hand to market powers. it rather requires more efficient international cooperation and solidarity likely to prevent the marginalization of a large part of the world population," Youssoufi said.

The Prime Minister also pleaded for devising a new monetary and financial architecture, finding innovative solutions to the recurrent issue of debt hitting the third world countries, securing a better access to world markets and setting up a stronger cooperation among the developing nations.

Developing nations should have a stronger say in the multilateral system to be able to defend their legitimate interests, Youssoufi said.

The Marrakesh meeting will be the starting point in the setting up of a renovated and fairer multilateral economic system, he said.