Nepal seeks meaningful assistance for trade, development

Nepal has urged the developed countries - that have been dragging their feet to fulfill long overdue trade and development related promises - to provide special market opportunities and extend meaningful support for the development of trade to the least developed countries (LDCs) so that low income countries could enjoy poverty reduction and other benefits from global trade regime.
Commerce Minister Lekh Raj Bhatta made such a call to the developed countries while attending Investment Advisory Council (IAC) of United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in Doha, Qatar, on Saturday.
Speaking at the Council, which was convened to discuss raising investment and productive capacity of the LDCs, Bhatta said that low income countries have been facing diverse obstacles in integrating their trade with the competitive global economy. Even though developed countries have promised support to overcome those obstacles, he said they have failed to live up to their words so far.
“LDCs are constrained by poor infrastructure and other structural problems. Unless these constraints are overcome, we LDC´s will continue to attain meaningful integration into the global economy,” a press statement of Nepal´s Permanent Mission to the United Nations and Other International Organizations in Geneva quoted Bhatta as saying.
Bhatta mainly sought support on areas like enhancing LDCs´ resilience to external shocks, building critical physical infrastructure such as roads, energy, electricity, telecommunications, development of science and technology and social and human development.
“LDCs by virtue of their characters face resource scarcity and even the foreign investment barely flow to such constrained countries,” he said, and called on the development partners to adopt, expand and implement policies that encourage and promote their investors to invest in the LDCs.
IAC, as a joint initiative of UNCTAD and the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), offers a platform for consultations between government leaders, heads of international organizations and CEOs of international companies.