Statement by Ms. Danuta Hübner,
United Nations Under-Secretary-General,
Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Europe
at
the fifth session of the Committee for Trade, Industry and Enterprise
Development
Geneva,
13 June 2001
Mr. Chairman,
Distinguished delegates,
I am pleased to welcome you to the fifth session of
the Committee for Trade, Industry and Enterprise Development.
We meet one month after the most important annual
meeting of all our shareholders, the fifty-five member States of the ECE –
the fifty-sixth Annual Session of the Commission. This year the meeting has
confirmed the clear mandate for all of us to strengthen the ECE’s role in
policy dialogue and to implement strategic directions the debate on which we
have initiated last year. These directions call for a greater coherence and
policy orientation of different activities carried out by Principal Subsidiary
Bodies in various parts of our organization. To facilitate achieving this
goal, the Commission has decided to establish a Steering Group to discuss the
overall policy and direction. This Steering Group will meet during the ECE’s
annual session and will include the Bureau of the ECE, the Chairs of all
Subsidiary Bodies and the Executive Secretary. We count very much on your
Bureau and hope it will actively participate in and provide input to this
Steering Group. Your vice chair, Mr. Alexander Safarik-Pstrosz actively
participated and greatly contributed to our debate for which I want to thank
him indeed very much. This greater policy coherence can be also supported by
strengthened inter-sectoral cooperation. The Steering Group will certainly
contribute to such inter-sectoral cooperation., but we need the involvement of
the Principal Subsidiary Bodies themselves in supporting and stimulating such
cooperation. Areas where the Commission has specifically called upon your Committee to develop intersectoral cooperation are:
border-crossing and trade facilitation; and trade, timber and environment. The
Commission also encourages the Committee to develop other cross-sectoral
activities whenever opportunities present themselves and where you see a value
added to be generated by an intersectoral approach. This is certainly true for
electronic commerce, investment and enterprise development that can be pursued
in the future. For implementing inter-sectoral activities it is also important
that we take an innovative approach to seeking funding and again, we count
very much on your assistance in this respect.
Another issue taken up by the Commission and of
relevance to your work is the Millennium Declaration, adopted by the heads of
UN member States at the Millennium Summit. This Declaration contains a number
of goals that both member States and the United Nations are committed to
accomplishing. In support of this process, the Commission held a roundtable to
discuss the key policy concerns and objectives of the Declaration that are of
relevance to the ECE region.
Among these objectives there are also those of
particular relevance to your work, like the eradication of poverty; the use of
information technology to support development; environmentally friendly
aspects of international trade and investment; and a greater involvement of
civil society and, particularly NGOs and the business community, in the United
Nations’ work.
The Commission highlighted the need to make special
efforts to eliminate the negative consequences of the Chernobyl disaster. In
this context I would ask your Working Party 8 and its Team of Specialists on
Trade in Radioactive Steel to consider the possibility of their making a
contribution to this effort.
Therefore, I would like to invite your Committee to
consider what contributions you could make to the implementation of the
Millennium Declaration and to incorporate the concerns of this declaration
into your programme of work for the coming years.
During this current session, your Committee has
important decisions to make. In particular, with regard to the terms of
reference for the Committee, the policy objectives and strategic goals for the
Committee’s activities. Recommendations and decisions of the last session of
the Commission can certainly provide practical guidance for the Committee in
its work as a policy forum and will facilitate its cooperation both with the
other principal subsidiary bodies and other international organizations.
I would like to thank you for your excellent working
relationships with the other regional economic commissions, ESCAP and ESCWA in
particular, as well as with such members of the UN family as UNCTAD, ITC, FAO,
UNCITRAL, WIPO and WTO. Your well-established cooperation with the European
Commission is of particular importance in view of enlargement. Please continue
this cooperation and, wherever possible, expand upon it.
I would like to encourage increased cooperation with
the many subregional organizations for which the ECE traditionally provides
substantive and technical support, such as the Central European Initiative,
the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Black Sea Economic Cooperation and
the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Your contribution
to our subregional programmes: SECI, SPECA, South Caucasus is also needed.
I would also like to confirm the Secretariat’s
support to the proposal of a high-level meeting on trade facilitation to take
place next year, in cooperation with other international organizations, with
participations of all partners needed for this process.
We are also ready to help you in your efforts to
streamline CEFACT structures and your continued efforts in developing and
promoting ebXML as a way of ensuring that all we do in this field is in line
with new technologies development and can be widely used throughout the
region. With regard to enterprise development, it is encouraging to see a very
ambitious programme of the Working Party 8 which includes a number of projects
of high value. I trust we will move more ahead starting by those projects
which are most needed, with most support and of particular relevance to
transition economies.
I also want to thank those of you who have
contributed to the Forum on “Trading into the future: e-services for trade,
investment and enterprise” and those who will contribute to a Policy
Roundtable on Services in Transition Economies. They represent a vivid
testimony of practical nature of the Committee’s work, as well as the
relevance of this work for both developed and transition economies in the
region. The Forum put forward a practical programme to promote trade in
e-services in transition economies and made recommendations for action by
Governments and enterprises. However, it is important that member Governments
and international organizations work together to convey the benefits of trade
in e-services to all countries of the region so that the programme contributes
to the economic growth and prosperity of the region as a whole. Now, it is up
to the Committee to take up these recommendations and convert them into a
number of concrete activities.
Mr. Chairman, Distinguished delegates, let me thank
you for your invaluable support for activities of the ECE and your commitment
to even further increasing its usefulness for all the countries of our region.
Thank you for your attention.