Governments suggest paths towards implementation
Geneva, 11 October 2011 - The Secretary-General of UNCTAD, Dr. Supachai Panitchpakdi, and the Secretary-General of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Dr. Surin Pitsuwan, opened the High-Level Regional Consultative meeting for South Asian Countries in Bangkok on 3 October 2011. The purpose of the event was to review the UNCTAD principles on responsible sovereign lending and borrowing and their potential for future implementation.
Dr. Supachai referred to the necessity to counter the herd instinct overwhelmingly present in capital markets by allocating responsibilities between lenders and borrowers more efficiently. He also underscored the importance of learning from South Asian countries´ experiences in the aftermath of 1998. Dr. Surin highlighted the "nobility of the principles and their wide encompassing scope".
During the meeting, part of a continuous review process of the UNCTAD initiative, a number of recommendations aimed at refining the principles were made by country representatives. Participating countries stressed that the principles were important and very timely in the current global economic context. They encouraged UNCTAD to speed up the international consensus-building process. Further, a number of countries expressed their readiness to explore the implementation of the principles on a unilateral basis, though keeping in mind that it should be part of a global process.
Senior policymakers from India, Indonesia, Japan, Nepal, the Philippines, Thailand and Viet Nam engaged in constructive discussions of the principles. Speakers and moderators included Ms. Yuefen Li, Head of UNCTAD Debt and Development Finance Branch, Dr. Cayetano Paderanga, Secretary of Socio-Economic Planning of the Philippines, and Noritaka Akamatsu, Deputy Head of the Office of Regional Economic Integration of the Asian Development Bank. The moderators emphasized co-responsibility and the importance of the principles in the context of debt crisis prevention.
Details of the meeting can be found at: www.unctad.info/debtportal.
