Mr. President,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

    It is a great honor for me to address the first ever International Conference on Financing for Development. First of all, I would like to express our gratitude to the government of Mexico and the people of Monterrey, for their generous hospitality.

Mr. President,

    The conference offers an opportunity to tackle the formidable challenges presented by the rapid pace of globalization and interdependence, to rethink and reshape our world and particularly to unlock the potential of development by revitalizing its financing.
    Globalization and regionalization of the world economy involve a new level of interaction and interdependence of states. Along with obvious benefits, globalization entails a danger of a lopsided distribution of these benefits.
    We meet today against the backdrop of a global economy caught in the grip of a prolonged economic slowdown with uncertain prospects for the near future. Poverty is still rampant with over half the world subsisting under $2 per day, underdevelopment is widespread and a widening gap between the haves and havenots threatens to undermine progress and stability.
    Such developments demonstrate the vulnerability and fragility of the global economy in the world we share forcing us to realign our thinking on the issue of peace, security and development.
    As, it is important for developing countries and countries with the economy in transition to have a stable, conducive external environment, we call on the developed countries to vigorously adopt appropriate fiscal and monetary policies to stabilize their domestic economy, open the markets to developing countries, increase development assistance, and promote technology transfer so as to create a more favorable external environment.

    My country has entered the new millennium with all the problems characteristic to the countries with the economy in transition. Reduction of public
sector and structural changes in the economy produced unemployment and loss of income.
    The Government, conscious of the urgent need to address the poverty problem, has adopted the state program on fighting poverty and unemployment with special focus on nutrition, health and educational needs.
    Now, the economy of the country is on rise as GDP grew over 13 percent during last year. Growing economy allows to solve social problems. The number of working places is growing. The level of employment of economically active population has reached 90.2%.
    But all these positive facts must not create an impression that all current and strategic problems have been solved and it is even time to rest on our laurels. However, in this era of globalization domestic efforts alone cannot be successful. We recognize challenges that present considerable threat to independence and security of our country. These are sequel of economic crisis in the world, instability on our southern borders, growth of terrorism, drug trafficking, HIV spread and escalation of criminality in many countries.
    Therefore we pay special attention to formation of efficient system of regional security based on such institutions as Collective Security Treaty, Shanghai Organization for Cooperation and Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia. The latter being initiated by President of Kazakhstan N. Nazarbaev will have its summit in June this year..

Mr. President,

    We acknowledge the primary role of effective domestic policies in ensuring domestic growth and that flow of international financing must be matched by improved governance as well as sound macroeconomic and fiscal policy. At the same time, international assistance and external financing still remain an essential factor for development of many countries, especially the most vulnerable, landlocked developing countries among them. Therefore, Kazakhstan welcomes "Monterrey Consensus" which highlights essential nature of international financing, especially ODA, for this group of countries.

Mr. President,

    Trade is the most important and multi-dimensional mechanism for almost all developing countries to mobilize and expand their domestic and external bases of resource for financing of development. Trade is also the major instrument of integration to the international economy, expansion of domestic savings, promotion of economic growth and the eradication of poverty.
     The process of shaping the international trade system unprecedentedly contributed the international economic growth. At the same time, despite the progress achieved in the development of international trading relations, direct and indirect tariff barriers continue to affect a considerable number of goods, some of which are important export items for the developing countries. In this connection there is in our view a need for further multilateral efforts to establish a dialogue between the participants in trade relations to ensure further liberalization in the sphere of international trade.
    To reach our high goals we also need improved cooperation between multilateral institutions: UN, WTO, Bretton-Woods institutions as well as their reforms so as to better meet the new challenges.

Mr. President,

    We are now in a new century when economic globalization intensifies, mutual economic interdependence deepens, and information technology is widely applied. Let's hope that all countries of the world as a whole join hands together for cooperation so as to make our world better place to live in.

Thank you for your attention.