Mr. Chairman, distinguished Delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen.

First of all, on behalf of the delegation of Hungary, I would like to express my deep gratitude to the European Union for hosting the 3^rd UN Conference on LDCs and to Mr. Rubens Ricupero for accepting the request to be the Secretary-General of the Conference.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Nowadays one tenth of the world population lives in one of the 49 least developed countries, which is a huge amount in itself. Even more worrying, that most of these countries are highly indebted, without adequate means to improve the domestic economy, environment, health-care, education, social infrastructure and living standard of their inhabitants and they are at the mercy of the external shocks. We know that LDCs are in a particularly difficult situation, because they need to create the right conditions for their integration into the international processes through resolute parallel actions in many fields. Establishing a safe national socio-economic environment requires the development of a solid network of financial, legal and administrative institutions, the improvement of infrastructure and the functioning of the internal market. For this they need capital, investments, up to date information and access to new technologies.

Mr. Chairman,

Hungary has the firm view that it is imperative both politically and morally to halt the further marginalization of the least developed counties. The Paris Declaration and Programme of Action for the 1990s did not live up entirely to the expectations of the least developed countries. Hungary strongly believes that the new Programme of Action that is going to be adopted on this Conference will be more successful and will effectively contribute to economic and social development in the targeted countries, with the objective of alleviating poverty, ensuring sustainable growth and providing for a higher standard of living in these countries.

The Hungarian delegation shares the view that without meaningful and well targeted technical assistance and capacity building the least developed countries will not be able to make optimal use of the hopefully increasing investment, training, new technological and market access opportunities. In this respect we think it necessary to co-ordinate the activities of the different agencies having responsibility in this field. To this end we fully agree with the co-operative work of the 6 international agencies (the IMF, ITC, UNCTAD, UNDP, World Bank and WTO) to implement country specific assistance programmes in the scope of the Integrated Framework for Trade-Related Technical Assistance of LDCs.

Mr Chairman,

We are convinced that every single least developed country has its own comparative advantages and weak points. This underlines the importance of carefully crafted country specific programmes in the quest to stop their further marginalization and better serve their integration into the world economy. Furthermore, for lasting success, we need a worldwide collaboration in the implementation of these programmes and we all have to follow the principle of the “one for all - all for one”.

Hungary believes that all countries in the world and all agencies dealing with international processes should take the specific problems of the least developed countries into due consideration. We are convinced that concrete actions, such as the improvement of market access for LDC products, are needed to ensure a prospect of their fuller integration into the world economy.

Hungary strongly supports the provision of duty and quota free market access for all products originating in LDCs by all developed and more advanced developing countries and we welcome the initiatives of the European Union and Norway for providing these benefits.

Let me inform you Mr. Chairman, that it was more than two decades ago that Hungary introduced a scheme, providing special preferential tariff treatment for least developed countries. Under our system, all agricultural and industrial products originating from least developed countries receive total and unconditional duty free and quota free entry to the Hungarian market. As a result, looking at only the past 5 years the value of the total import originated from these countries is nearly doubled and Hungary is among the 30 most considerable import markets of the least developed countries.

Hungary hopes that the Action Programme of the Conference will sum up the most important focal points - as poverty alleviation, health care, debt elimination, market access -, because without arranging these crucial tasks there is no chance to step forward and to become a successful competitor on the world market. We believe that the Action Programme hand in hand with the Cotonou Agreement, the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers and the Country Strategy Papers will help to promote balanced and integrated policies conducive to sustainable development and integration of the least developed countries into the world economy. I would like to assure you, Mr. Chairman, that you may count on the constructive co-operation of my delegation in our common effort to make this Conference a success.

Thank you Mr. Chairman