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Landlocked developing countries urge preferential access to global markets

Xinhua, June 6, 2015 Adjust font size:

Land Locked Developing Countries (LLDCs) are calling for a preferential access scheme for them to participate effectively in global trading, a communique issued after a meeting and emailed to Xinhua on Friday said.

The 32-member countries have indicated that the scheme should also include tariff concessions and without any tariff barriers so that they could improve their participation in the global trading system.

The communique, issued after a three-day high-level ministerial meeting of LLDCs in the southern Zambian city of Livingstone, held from June 2 to 4, expressed concern that the grouping's share of international trade only stood at 1.2 percent and has highlighted actions to improve their participation.

According to the communique, developed and developing countries should also work towards the conclusion of the Doha Development Agenda which would create new market access opportunities for the LLDCs and eliminate trading distorting practices that affect their exports.

"In order to address the serious infrastructure gap in the LLDCs, delegates appealed to the international community to at least double their annual investments for infrastructure development in the LLDCs from all sources, including official development assistance (ODA), North-South, South-South cooperation and public-private partnerships," the communique said.

New and additional funding from development banks will be especially instrumental in efforts to reach the goal, it added, while calling on LLDCs to develop and imbed infrastructure investment plans in their national development strategies and strengthen the domestic enabling environment.

The meeting is a follow-up to the 2014 Second United Nations Conference on LLDCs that was held in Vienna, Austria, where UN member states adopted the ambitious Vienna Programme of Action for the LLDCs for the Decade 2014 – 2024 (VPoA).

The Vienna Programme of Action is a holistic and results- oriented program succeeding the Almaty Programme of Action (APoA) as the development blueprint for LLDCs for the next decade.

The 10-year blueprint underscores the commitment of the global community to support LLDCs in dealing with challenges related to landlockedness, remoteness and geographical disadvantages.

According to the communique, donors should honor their ODA commitments and ensures that the distribution of ODA was based on country-specific priorities and that they should ensure that a larger share of aid for trade was directed towards LLDCs given their particular infrastructure and trade-related needs. Endi