UNCTAD V (Hansard, 11 June 1979)

§ Mr. Parkinson

The fifth United Nations conference on trade and development met in Manila from 3 May to 3 June.

The conference adopted resolutions by consensus on a number of matters including protectionism, the integrated programme for commodities, resource transfers including aid volume, the United Nations liner code, the transfer of technology and economic co-operation between developing countries.

Some other resolutions were adopted by majority vote. The subjects included civil aviation, a study of a proposed new complementary financial facility to stabilise commodity producers' export earnings, international monetary reform and bulk shipping.

In addition, a number of questions on which no agreement was reached were remitted for further consideration by the trade and development board of UNCTAD or other UNCTAD committees. These included an evaluation of the outcome of the GATT multilateral trade negotiations, and various proposals put forward by the developing countries on 53W the generalised scheme of preferences, on measures to expand their trade in manufactures, on a new multilateral guarantee facility, on a new export credit guarantee facility, on debt and on international consultation about the whole spectrum of world economic issues which were discussed under item 8 of the conference agenda.

In common with most other developed countries, we vote against the resolutions which were adopted by majority vote. We also, again in common with some other countries, made statements of reservation on some of the resolutions adopted by consensus. These included an explanation, in relation to the resolution on resource transfer, that we could not enter into commitments about future levels of aid in anticipation of the outcome of our review of public expenditure programmes.

Finally, a large number of countries, including the United Kingdom, indicated their willingness to make a financial contribution to the second window of the common fund.

Our objective at the conference was to try to promote a serious discussion of ways of furthering the international effort to deal with the real problems which face the developing countries, and to seek to persuade them that developed and developing countries alike share a common interest in maintaining and strengthening—not in overturning—the existing international arrangements for co-operation on trade and financial issues. It was in this spirit that we were able to associate ourselves with, and welcome, those resolutions which were adopted by consensus. It was in the same spirit that, together with most other developed countries, we had to oppose some of the developing countries' proposals, for example for cargo sharing in bulk shipping, and for work and negotiations in UNCTAD on financial trade issues which properly belong to the IMF, the GATT and other international bodies.

This was not a dramatic conference Even where no agreement was possible, it was clear that both developing and developed countries wished to avoid a breakdown in the dialogue between them: I hope that discussion in Manila will have helped to encourage a more practical and realistic approach to the points in dispute. And in other areas—notably on international 54W trade, which was one of the central issues at the conference—useful progress was achieved towards greater understanding and co-operation. There was unanimous agreement that the world's economic problems cannot be solved by concealed or open protectionism: and further discussions should be set in hand on two matters of importance to the developing countries—in the GATT, on import restrictions affecting their exports; and in UNCTAD, on the continuing adjustment of global patterns of industrial production to changes in patterns of trade.

I shall be placing in the Library of the House in due course the text of the resolutions which were adopted by consensus or voted on, together with relevant statements which I made at the time. An account of the conference will be published in a White Paper as soon as practicable.