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China backs bigger UN role in global fighting against financial crisis

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-06-23 13:26

China bolsters the United Nations to play a bigger role in addressing the international financial and economic crisis and hopes the upcoming UN conference could help developing countries out of the economic downturn, a senior Chinese diplomat said in New York Monday.

Liu Zhenmin, China's deputy permanent representative to the UN, said that the UN Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and Its Impact on Development to be held on June 24 to 26 at the UN headquarters in New York has won broad support from the international society, especially developing countries.

"The Chinese government attaches great importance to the conference," Liu told a news briefing to the New York-based Chinese media.

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He said that Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi is expected to deliver a speech at the plenary session of the conference and will hold bilateral meetings with top UN officials as well as heads of delegations from other countries.

China hopes the conference can provide a platform for countries to discuss measures on weathering global financial crisis and boosting common development in the spirit of mutual benefit and win-win cooperation, Liu said.

"We believe that the conference should pay special attention to the difficulties the crisis has brought to developing countries," Liu said, urging the international society to take substantial measures to help them out of the plight.

The conference, held after the G20 London summit in April and ahead of the G8 summit in Italy in July and G20 Pittsburg summit in September, is the first time for the UN to hold a high-level meeting on the issue in its history.

So far, 21 heads of state have confirmed their participation in the three-day conference beginning on Wednesday, including President of Serbia Boris Tadic and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Also attending the high-level meeting will be Iranian First Vice-President Pervez Davoudi, according to Enrique Yeves, spokesperson of the General Assembly president.

Yeves said that as of Friday, 126 countries out of 192 have confirmed participation in the conference.

As always with the United Nations, the measure of success depends on the document to be agreed upon and released to the world. Member states of the General Assembly are still in negotiation on the draft outcome document to be adopted at the end of the conference. The document will include three main elements: a global emergency stimulus plan, provisions to make the plan sustainable, and mechanisms to follow-up.

Besides, there will be four roundtables focusing on ways to mitigate the impact of the crisis on trade, employment, investments and development, contributions of the UN development system in response to the crisis as well as UN's role in the ongoing international discussion on reforming and strengthening the international financial and economic system.