Mr. President,
Secretary-General Supachai Panitchpakdi,
Excellencies
Distinguished Delegates,

          Let me first of all express my appreciation to the distinguished Minister of Trade of Ghana and the Secretary for Economic Policy of Argentina, as well as the UNCTAD Secretary-General, for enriching us with their wealth of experiences and ideas.

          The issue of coherence between national development strategies and international economic processes is a highly pertinent one to all of us, as we each seek to craft policies that will lead our countries along the best path to development.

Mr. President,

          As noted in this year’s Trade and Development Report 2006, there has been an on-going debate about the virtues of employing orthodox macroeconomic policies that rely primarily on market forces versus the utilization of more heterodox policies that require a more proactive approach on the part of governments.  The answer to this debate need not be in terms of black or white, as the experience of many countries show that there is certainly room for a mixture of the two approaches.

          In the view of my delegation, market forces must certainly continue to play a leading role in ensuring the efficient allocation of scarce resources, but this alone is not sufficient to guarantee sustainable development for developing and least developed countries.  In today’s globalizing and highly competitive world, there is also a need for countries to employ proactive trade and industrial policies in their development strategies.  Such policies do not mean that there should be state intervention or protectionism in the economy, but rather that governments can play an important role in stimulating the dynamism of the private sector, enabling it to serve as the engine of national growth.

          Secretary Tangelson of Argentina has alluded to the “Thai Crisis” in his presentation.  In the case of Thailand, the 1997 Financial Crisis was an important wake-up call as well as a valuable learning experience.  However, through prudent macroeconomic policies and fiscal discipline, we have managed to recover from the crisis to the extent that we were able to pay off our IMF loan two years ahead of schedule.  Today, Thailand’s current account situation is very sound and in surplus, while our foreign reserves stand at almost 62 billion US dollars.

          All of this has been achieved through policies that focused on strengthening the domestic economy while simultaneously maintaining our openness to the global economy.  We have striven to develop the society’s inner strengths and develop an immune system that will make the economy less vulnerable to external shocks.  Much of the focus has centered around providing greater opportunities to the people as well as greater access to information and capital, thus unleashing the full extent of their productive capacities and potential.  Great priority has also been given to education reform and the development of human resources in order to transform Thailand into a knowledge-based society that will increase the country’s competitiveness and enable us to stand up to the challenges of the 21st century.  At the same time, we realize that the creation of an enabling regulatory environment is of paramount importance; therefore, comprehensive reforms in the financial, corporate and public sectors have been undertaken in line with good governance practices.  All of this certainly reflects the idea of “promoting productive capital formation” that Secretary-General Supachai highlighted in his very stimulating remarks.

Mr. President,

          These are just some of the policies that Thailand has been employing on our path to development, and the lively debate that has been generated during this session will certainly reinforce the notion that there is no “one-size-fits-all” approach to development.  My delegation is therefore grateful for a policy dialogue such as this, which will enable us to learn from one another’s experiences and best practices.

Thank you,

.