UNCTAD gloomy on outlook for poor

The world's 48 poorest countries are in danger of further falling behind more developed competitors in an increasingly globalised economy, UN officials have warned.

"The story is not a pretty one," said Mr Carlos Fortin, deputy secretary-general of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), in a press presentation of the agency's 1999 report on the world's least developed countries (LDCs).

The report established the "increasing marginalisation" of the LDCs, who accounted for 13 percent of the world's population as of 1997 but which had just a 0.4 per cent share of the world's exports and 0.6 per cent of the import pie.

The figures represented a 40 per cent fall from 1980 levels, Mr Fortin said. The club's number rose to 48 from 25 in 1971, with Botswana being the only country to have graduated from the group in the past 30 years, UNCTAD secretary-general Mr Rubens Ricupero said.

The group as a whole faced "supply-side constraints" and "could face additional difficulties" under the new global trading environment, Mr Fortin said.

"Liberalisation and globalisation have added new dimensions to the now familiar supply-side constraints as your countries attempt to adjust to the new, more competitive international environment," Mr Ricupero said in a speech to LDC ministers attending the UN meeting.

Despite efforts at the World Trade Organisation to lift import tariffs on merchandise exports of these countries, as well as debt relief, freer access to world markets "by itself" will not be able to change the fate of these countries. The report said many of these countries had "highly concentrated merchandise export" structures, and that foreign debt service was a "major drain" on meagre resources.

The report found "insufficiently developed human resources, deficiencies in physical infrastructures and other support services". LDCs were unable "to generate adequate resources for investments in alleviating these constraints".

It called for long-term financial and technical assistance to finance major investments in physical and social infrastructure, which are crucial to attracting private investment.