Mr. Chairman,

            I have the honour to make this statement on behalf of Group of 77 and China. 

2.         The Group of 77 & China would like to warmly congratulate you Mr. Chairman and other members of the bureau on your election.  We are confident that your vast diplomatic experience in multilateral affairs would be of great value to the Committee in this budget year.  We assure you of our cooperation to make this important session a success. 

3.         The Group of 77 and China would like to thank the Bureau and the Secretariat for presenting a balanced programme of work. It is a difficult undertaking in a budget year, while taking into consideration the equal importance of many other items. We also appreciate the designation of the Coordinators to facilitate negotiations on the related items.

4.         The resolutions 59/265, 58/250, 57/283B, 56/242, 55/222, 54/248 and 53/208 call for issuance of all documents, in all working languages, six weeks before the opening of the session.   We regret to note that lack of compliance with these resolutions is now a norm rather than an exception. A large percentage of important documents are being issued very late. These delays seriously impact the quality of our deliberations. We would like to see the early results of the measures that the Secretary-General envisages to address the underlying reasons for this practice.

5.         It is important to clarify that our readiness to consider any item on the programme of work would be contingent upon the availability of all relevant documents in six official languages, with sufficient time for the Group to coordinate its position.

6.         During the 61st session, under strong political pressure, the Fifth Committee was constrained to deal with some important issues at the last minute. That was the case of the restructuring of the DPKO in the last week of June 2007.  We regret that contrary to the urgency emphasized for the appointment of USG Field Support, five months since its establishment this post still remains vacant. 

7.         We have several systemic and reform related items before us during the current session. Considering the strategic value of the programme budget for biennium 2008-2009, we would like to emphasize that adequate time should be  allocated for extensive deliberations on this item.  We would also like to stress that the spirit of transparency and inclusiveness must be maintained in the negotiations on all items before us. The Group of 77 and China has number of questions about the efficiency and effectiveness that the Organization has gained as result of decisions that were imposed during the budget for 2006-07. We would like to reiterate our opposition to the decision making in small group configuration especially on the budget and reform issues, as well as to imposing any conditionality in the budget negotiations.

8.         The heavy agenda that we have to dispense with, calls for flexibility, compromise and understanding of the concerns on various issues. We assure you of our constructive approach during the 62nd session. 

I thank You Mr. Chairman.