| Puru Subedi |
Posted
on 02-Sep-03 01:00 PM
FYI. From today's U.N. Wire e-newsletter.
-PS
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Landlocked Countries Win Agreement On Market Access
Landlocked countries have won agreement from a consortium of international agencies, financial institutions and developing countries that have transit access on securing greater access to sea lanes and a reduction of red tape involved in trade.
Participants at U.N.-sponsored talks that ended Friday in Almaty, Kazakhstan, established the Almaty Program of Action, which provides a framework for trade cooperation between 30 landlocked countries and 33 transit-access developing countries.
The plan envisions compensating landlocked countries, including a number of African nations and some of the world's other least developed countries, with improved market access and less red tape.
The goal of the program is to reduce transportation costs paid by landlocked developing countries from the current average of 15 percent of each landlocked country's export earnings to the 7 percent average level paid by developing countries with sea access.
In comparison, developed countries with direct access to the sea pay 3 to 4 percent of their export earnings on transportation costs, according to U.N. statistics.
Nine of the 12 lowest-ranking countries on the U.N. Human Development Index are landlocked, and economists estimate that these countries' landlocked status costs them 0.7 percent economic growth rate annually (U.N. release, Aug. 29).
The Almaty plan also calls for heightened efforts to help the landlocked countries gain membership to the World Trade Organization. More than a third of the world's 30 landlocked developing countries do not belong to the WTO.
The Almaty agreement will be reviewed at a meeting of ministers of landlocked countries in New York in October (U.N. release, Sept. 1).
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