GROUP OF 77
GENEVA

OPENING STATEMENT ON BEHALF OF THE GROUP OF 77 AND CHINA BY CAMBODIA AT THE 14TH SESSION OF TRADE AND DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION
(Geneva, 22 April 2024)

President of the Trade and Development Commission,
Secretary-General of UNCTAD,
Excellencies,
Distinguished delegates,
Ladies and gentlemen,

I have the honor to deliver this statement on behalf of the Group of 77 and China.

At the outset, the G77 and China wishes to congratulate you Mr. President and Vice-Presidents and rapporteur on your election to preside over this 14th session of Trade and Development Commission. We extend our full support and cooperation to you to accomplish our tasks at this session.

Let me first acknowledge the insightful opening remarks by the Secretary-General of UNCTAD, Ms. Rebecca Grynspan.

The Group would like to thank the secretariat for the preparatory work for the celebration of this commission. Today, the Members of the Commission are about to go through the Reports from some of the expert meetings that took place during the last year. It is a good opportunity to revisit those discussions and highlight the objectives behind them. Please allow me to enumerate just a few:

On Commodities and development: Many members suffer from chronic commodity dependence; some of them have struggled for years to find a way to add value and participate in the global value chains. Primary goods are not only needed in industry but also provide accessible food for billions of people. These discussions have been on the table for years and are interlinked subjects that go beyond the need for better legal frameworks for investments.

On Services and development: Services have the advantage of following more adaptable business models that require investments in human talent as a starting point. Another difficult subject that, in other fora such as the WTO, has shown little progress in recent years due to the challenges of defining balanced rules for services markets.

On Transport, Trade Logistics, and Trade Facilitation: While some of our debates are centered on the need to integrate the majority of developing members into global value chains, we cannot ignore the need for better integration from a very material perspective, which is transport and logistics. Remoteness, market sizes, and logistical weaknesses elevate trade costs and put at risk the benefits that trade can bring to many developing economies.

The case of the Intergovernmental Expert Meetings on Competition and Consumer Protection Law and Policy are the excellent example of technical groups with high-quality outcomes that involve very particular state agencies. What differentiates them from the previous ones is that the outcomes are normative guidelines which follow very concrete goals.

The Group of 77 and China values and cherishes the work of the groups of experts and, because of it, regrets the liquidity crises the UN is facing and the impact it has on the work of this house. The limitations placed on remote participation in the expert meetings exclude many developing members from extracting all the benefits from the efforts placed into the preparation of such meetings. Virtual tools are also a means to prevent the expert meetings from being just events, allowing them to function as sustainable processes.

Please allow me now to briefly comment on item 6 of the agenda, "Trade and development implications of key aspects of the energy transition." I would like to read to you a part of the summary of the opening remarks by our Secretary-General Rebeca Grynspan at the opening of the last Multiyear Group of Experts on Trade and Services. She said that in 2022, for the first time in decades, the number of people without access to modern energy was set to rise, mostly in the least developed countries. Around 75 million people who recently gained access to electricity were likely to lose the ability to pay for it, and 100 million people might have reverted to the use of traditional biomass for cooking. Globally, over 2 billion people, about one in every four people, remained energy poor. The action needed is to ensure no one is left behind in the transition to a more sustainable energy future.

We are now discussing critical minerals and energy transition, a conversation that needs to keep the perspective of the real developmental impact that extractive activities have had on local communities and the limited access to energy of a considerable part of the world population.

Last but not the least, on UNCTAD's rebranding, G77 and China takes note of it. However, more important than the rebranding itself, it is to continue working hard to make UNCTAD efficiently fulfil its development mission, leaving no one behind.

To conclude, allow me to recall the selection of themes for the present Commission. The suggested topics we are about to discuss were endorsed by the Members after a brief discussion in the Extended Bureau. This exercise was complemented afterward with several consultations with the Group's coordinators and focus groups, a step the Group would like to commend as it helps Members to better understand the topics as well as the Secretariat to gain more insights into the Members' views on them.

Thank you!