'Give special treatment to landlocked LDCs'

Land-locked Least Developed Countries (LLDCs) should get special treatment, said experts. "The LLDCs should get separate treatment as they are additionally handicapped," said former National Planning Commission (NPC) member Dr Dilli Raj Khanal at an interaction on 'En route to UNLDC IV: Preparatory works and Nepal's Leadership, organised by South Asia Watch on Trade Economics and Environment (SAWTEE) here today.
"The cosmetic changes will not help LDCs meet the target unless there is socio-economic transformation," he said, adding that the structural transformation can alone benefit.
However, LDCs like Nepal have to enhance production capacity with changes in policy, he suggested, adding that productivity could not be enhanced with current industrial policy, institutional mechanism, and tariff regime.
The fourth United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries (UNLDC IV) is going to be held in Istanbul, Turkey on May 9-13. The purpose of the conference is to assess the results of the 10-year action plan for the LDCs adopted at UNLDC III in Brussels, Belgium in 2001 and to adopt new measures and strategies for the sustainable development of the LDCs into the next decade.
LDCs, including Nepal, have been engaged in preparatory works for the conference at national as well as regional and global levels through the participation of government organisations, civil society organisations, international organisations, private sector, academia, media, and all relevant stakeholders.
Currently, Nepal is the chair of the LDC Group, and therefore, the role it is playing in the preparatory process for UNLDC IV is extremely important.
"Integration of LDCs in access to multilateral trade regime could help sustainable development, said Permanent Representative of Nepal to the WTO and Permanent Mission to the United Nations Office at Geneva ambassador Dr Dinesh Bhattarai, who has been coordinating the preparatory tasks among the LDC representatives in Geneva.
In UN parlance, they are the 48 LDCs. Thirty-three are located in sub-Saharan Africa; 14 in southern Asia and Oceania; and one (Haiti) is in the western hemisphere.
Balanced on a knife edge between sorrow and hope, the case of the LDCs poses the next big globalisation challenge.
Investors are now eager to engage on a worldwide stage, and the world's new investors – the rising powers from the global south – are fast becoming major LDC trading and investment partners.