General Assembly Session 62 meeting 113

Mr. Pramudwinai (Thailand)

Thank you, Mr. President, not just for convening this timely meeting today, but for your stimulating statement this morning urging the world to jointly address this highly important and urgent global food and energy crisis. I also wish to thank the Secretary-General for his leadership in mobilizing the United Nations and other relevant organizations to respond to these challenges, resulting in the comprehensive framework for action.

Allow me to also mention my delegation's full support for the calls by Indonesia, Egypt and Chile, as reflected in their joint letters to the President-elect of the General Assembly at its sixty-third session, for the Assembly to include food and energy security and development as a central theme of the upcoming sixty-third session. Today, in the sixty-second session, you, Sir, are laying a foundation for further deliberations at the next session.

The comprehensive framework for action has provided a comprehensive picture of the what, why and how of the crisis. I could not agree with you more, Sir, and with all the other speakers this morning, that the global food and energy crisis calls for urgent and collective actions. Indeed, the challenges of this issue is staring us in the face. We all know its severity, gravity and devastating effects, and we know full well that the matter has progressed beyond the stage for reflecting on and lamenting its nature, causes and problems. The concern before us now is, rather, how to tackle it. Tackling it jointly, with political will and genuine resolve, is the only way to go, and concrete steps must be taken in that regard.

Thailand is the world's fifth largest food producer and a top rice-exporting country, it is in our interests -- and our intention -- to join the world in doing our best to help alleviate the food problem facing us all today. Thailand will increase its production capacity, or will at least maintain its level of production, and export 9 million tons of rice per year to the world market.

While Thailand has an innate natural capacity to grow both food and energy crops, the Thai Government has no policy of prioritizing the production of energy crops over food crops. Rather, biofuels have so far been produced from crops that are surplus to domestic food consumption, such as cassava and sugar cane. Although we are not a net energy importer, like some other less fortunate countries, we share the pain of those countries when seeing the impact of the rise of fuel costs on the livelihoods of their people, not to mention the destabilizing effect that these price hikes have had on world economic activities.

But the relevant question is: How much have speculation, financial volatility and supply and demand factors contributed to this hike? How much speculation has spiralled into attempts at market manipulation? The world is governed by a free-market economy. We all believe in market forces. But if market forces are partially steered by manipulative efforts, it is incumbent upon the international community to rectify that, with the objective of stabilizing prices. Can prices be maintained at a comfortable level for all consumers, all producers and those in the energy business alike, for an extended period, say two or three years? That would be possible if and only if the political will is there and when we realize that the results of inaction would be too damaging for any country to bear or for the world economy to sustain. In tackling this global food and energy crisis, can we count on the United Nations to put its efforts into real and concrete actions?

Mr. Tarar (Pakistan)

Allow me at the outset to thank you, Mr. President, for convening this meeting to address the food and energy challenges before us. We also thank the Secretary-General for presenting the comprehensive framework for action. Pakistan associates itself with the statement made by the representative of Antigua and Barbuda on behalf of the Group of 77 and China.

The triple challenge of food, fuel and finance that we are facing today has serious economic and social ramifications, especially for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the aim of making poverty history. The current food crisis has affected millions of people in developing countries. The crisis is a result of the neglect of agriculture; bad policies on trade; biofuels; market speculation; natural disasters; and the impact of climate change. The international community's response has to be urgent, coherent and comprehensive. The current emergency phase should focus mainly on meeting the needs of stressed and vulnerable groups. Short-term actions should aim at increasing production. Over the longer term, we need to address the underlying policy and structural issues.

It is important that the framework for action have the ownership of the entire international community. For that to happen, there is a need for greater interaction and consultation between the High-Level Task Force on the Global Food Security Crisis and Member States here at the United Nations and for a periodic review of the framework's implementation by the General Assembly. Since we have had very little time to analyse the proposed framework, we would like to give our views and input at the next possible opportunity.

The Follow-up International Conference on Financing for Development to Review the Implementation of the Monterrey Consensus to be held in Doha and, before that, the General Assembly's high-level meeting on the MDGs will provide opportunities to address these challenges at the highest level. In that regard, we support the proposal of Chile, Egypt and Indonesia that food security and development be the main theme of the general debate of the sixty-third session, without prejudice to other issues on the global agenda.

Similarly, we look forward to a comprehensive and equitable approach to dealing with the problem of energy prices. We do not support the assumption that the rise in energy prices is due to a supply-demand gap. The price hike in energy is attributable to a host of factors. First, the immediate problem lies in refining capacity, not inadequate supply. The extra supply that the developed countries keep demanding from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries can only come from sour crude. There is a lack of sufficient refining capacity even in the most industrialized economies. Refining is the bottleneck, not the supply of crude oil itself. Secondly, due to speculation, crude oil prices keep increasing, because the speculators are adding into the current prices the assumption that the world is going to run out of oil one day and that there are no additional reserves, thus discouraging further exploration. Thirdly, there is a doomsday security scenario for the oil-rich areas. Increasing rhetoric about imminent conflict and strikes in the Gulf, coupled with the problems in Nigeria and the Sudan, has been a major factor in pushing up the prices.

Some control mechanism and regulations are needed to moderate prices by curbing manipulative speculation. Speculation in fuel and food benefits only the speculators, hedge funds and traders who continuously test and push the markets to the limits. It is beneficial neither for the common man, nor for the economy.

There is an urgent need to provide balance-of-payment support to the developing countries, that are the most severely affected by the rising food and energy prices. We urge the rich countries generously to support the developing countries in their balance-of-payment problems. The welcome initiative of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the generous $500-million contribution by His Majesty King Abdullah should be followed up by other steps to moderate prices and meet the financial needs of the affected developing countries.

The current financial crisis in the industrialized economies has critically exposed the vulnerabilities of a liberalized financial system. It has also highlighted the challenge facing the policymakers and regulators in an increasingly globalized, ever-changing world. The financial crisis will induce a slowdown in world trade and exert downward pressure on domestic development in most emerging markets, with varying impact depending on the country. If the current turbulence develops into a full-blown systemic financial crisis, with a large contraction in credit distribution in the major industrial economies and a lengthy painful period for the financial sector worldwide, there would be hugely negative consequences and decoupling would probably disappear under pressure from protectionism and financial transmission mechanisms.

Therefore, it is also important to prevent a major depressive impact on the economies of the South and to alleviate the undue burden being placed on the emerging markets of Asia to maintain growth in the world economy. Even as the real-estate and stock-market bubbles deflate in the major industrial economies, it is important to ensure that their adjustment response does not consist of resorting to new protectionism against the developing countries.

At the same time, it is all the more important now to ensure the implementation of the commitments undertaken significantly to increase official development assistance. We are disappointed that, despite the commitments made earlier in Monterrey at the world leaders' summit and in Gleneagles, official development assistance declined in 2006 and 2007.

Lastly, the two requirements most imperative to meeting the food and energy challenges are money and technology. The United Nations must take the lead in generating both. If it does not, poverty and despondency will grow, with potentially destabilizing effects on a large number of countries.

The challenges are huge, as should be our collective will and response. We cannot afford to falter any further on the agreed development commitments and goals. Procrastination and inaction will be catastrophic. We need to act, and to act now.