Monday, July 14, 2008
Mexican
President attends Group of Five Meeting in Japan
Presidency
of the Republic
(Excerpts from speech by Mexican President Felipe
Calderón)
The Group of Five, comprised of China, represented
by President Hu Jintao; Brazil, represented by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva; India, represented by Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh; South Africa, represented by Thabo Mbeki; and Mexico, represented by myself, President Felipe Calderón, had an
extremely productive meeting,* the highlights of which I will now describe.
Member countries of the Group of Five represent nearly
45% of the world population, and include the main developing economies.
And the Group of Five informs the developed countries
in the Group of Eight of the concerns of developing countries.
We discussed a variety of issues, while focusing primarily
on the main concerns for our countries.
The main issue in our conversation was food price increases, which substantially
affect our economies, particularly the poorest families in our countries.
An increase in food prices means that poverty may
increase in our countries and the rest of the world.
Members of the group stressed that greater collaboration
is required both in the North-South dialogue, which is encouraged by this meeting between the Group of Eight and the Group
of Five, and South-South collaboration between our nations, of which the Group of Five mechanism is a valuable instrument.
I would ask you to look for solutions to our problems
to encourage an international reform that will improve our nations' capacity to cope with the risks to development.
The causes of the food price increases are both numerous
and complex but we agree that it is unfair to blame developing economies for these problems.
We demand greater participation by the international
community, particularly existing international organizations to diagnose the problem and offer solutions.
Coordinated action is required to combat the worldwide
inflation affecting our countries.
I will briefly summarize the political declaration
by the leaders of the Group of Five, a document drawn up by the Presidents, Heads of State and Prime Minister.
First. We wish to take steps towards fair economic
governance to create a stable, orderly, and transparent financial system, and to improve coordination between advanced and
emerging economies.
We are also seeking a conclusion to the Doha Round
as soon as possible.
The document emphasizes the importance of food security,
because food price increases are affecting the most vulnerable sector of the population that is located in our countries.
We are seeking to increase technological innovations
and increase international cooperation to improve the world's agricultural production.
We also dealt with the issue of climate change and
believe that the international community should deal with the challenge of climate change through a form of cooperation in
keeping with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
The Group of Five stressed that developing countries
should not have to shoulder what is quite clearly the responsibility of developed countries, which should assume leadership
on this issue.
It is important to invest in the development of new
technologies and access to the latter at a reasonable price.
It is also important to explore the development of
additional new financing mechanisms, and the attendees at this summit welcomed China’s proposal for financing and Mexico's
proposal for a Green Fund, which will be analyzed in detail by our governments.
We also dealt with the issue of energy security in
the Joint Statement, as well as the fact that it is essential to guarantee world energy security, and various heads of government
emphasized the need to analyze and reduce financial speculation, which affects both energy and food prices.
Lastly, the document refers to the Millennium Development
Objectives and the Monterrey Consensus to ensure that countries’ development is based on the mobilization of new and
additional resources, fair trade, international cooperation, and sustainable financing for development.
The need for south-south cooperation, as a complement
to north-south cooperation, was also emphasized.
The role of the Group of Five was confirmed. The Group
of Five has pledged to continue to be involved in all efforts leading to better world economic governance and other world
changes required to ensure that globalization and interdependence work for the benefit of all.
We also agreed, that during the meeting of the Group
of Eight and the Group of Five, we will focus particularly on the main problem we are facing, namely food and energy price
increases. And we will use the Group of Eight-Group of Five dialogue mechanism
to share the search for solutions to this pressing problem.
Finally, the leaders suggested holding a Group of
Five meeting a few months before the Group of Eight Meeting, which will be held in Italy.
President Lula offered to host the meeting in Brazil,
and it was agreed to analyze this proposal so that it can be discussed by representatives in each country.
This is a brief description of the meeting we held,
which was attended by the five members of the Group of Five, whom I thank for their interest and willingness to take part
in this mechanism.
(…)
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* MexiData.info note:
The G5 meetings were coordinated with the G8 (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan,
Russia, USA, and UK) Summit held July 7-9, in Hokkaido, Japan.
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Press Release: Presidency of the Republic, July 8,
2008, Sapporo, Japan
Translation Presidency of the Republic
