Mr. Fox, President of Mexico and President of the Conference 
Head of States,
Your Excellencies, 
Distinguished Participants,

It is my pleasure to express my deepest appreciation and sincere thanks to the Government of Mexico for hosting this Conference and the United Nations for organizing it in a very beautiful City.

On behalf of His Highness Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani, the Amir of the State of Qatar, I wish all success to this conference, and I assure you of Qatar's full support and endorsement to this conference's noble mission.

We are here today to discuss ways to confront the challenges of financing development in the international arena. I hope that this meeting will be an effective step towards defining the future role of the bilateral and multilateral finance and development as well as, and to
increase co-operation and to establish new partnership between countries.

The terrorist attacks of the September 11, 2001 markedly increased uncertainties about the course of the world economy. Even before these sad events, international economic conditions had already suffered from weakness spreading to nearly all regions and across the globe. These circumstances have undoubtedly made it necessary to review our policies and increase the level of participation and co-operation in the world economic decision making for all member of the international community. The benefits of globalization should be shared fairly by nations of different stages of economic development.

All of us have a great role to play in supporting the international effort to ensure that the global systems of finance and trade fully support economic growth and social justice for all the people of the world. Qatar participates and interacts positively with the international community in the subject matter. It has committed itself from the very beginning to be a major partner among donor countries. Qatar is an active member in many economic, social, cooperative, development and agricultural organizations. Moreover, Qatar has established a development Fund to provide assistance to the needed countries and its developmental assistance relative to its GDP is one of the highest in the world.

Mr. President 
Head of States, 
Your Excellencies, 
Distinguished Participants,

My Country enters the news century as a modern State where freedom of speech and expression are rights and democratic principles are realities. Qatar is now chairing the Organization of the Islamic Conference. Recently, it has hosted two international meetings; the Summit in 2000 of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, and the Fourth Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in November 2001.

The two conferences stressed on the importance of encouraging the dimension of development in all multilateral and bilateral, trade and finance agreements. As you all know, the Fourth Ministerial Conference of WTO led to the "Doha Deceleration" with a promise of a new "Development Round" on trade negotiation. We call on this conference to encourage all member countries of the WTO to implement the commitments made in Doha. We also fully support and approach that speed up membership application for the WTO from developing countries.

Serious attention should be paid to the continuous decline in the official development assistance (ODA) to the less developed countries. Advanced and efficient economies are urged to increase their ODA and concessionality of development financing, including greater use of grants, to go side by side and be consistent with the current international development strategy.

We stress on the importance of finding a durable solution to the problems of external indebtedness of the developing and least developed countries. Reducing or even canceling some parts of the external debt due on poor countries would release some resources that can be directed towards financing urgent social and economic activities in these countries. Qatar has rescheduled and canceled parts of its debt due on some poor countries.

We call on the developing countries to adopt economic policies that enable them develop their economies and reduce poverty rates. In this regard, developed countries should offer full support to developing countries to diversify their production and export base. Foreign direct investment (FDI) is so much essential in this matter. It's very needed to transfer know-how, management knowledge and investment to the developing countries. Well off countries markets should be opened to the products of the developing countries.

Moreover, we call on the international community to avoid adopting policies that negatively affect certain groups of countries or that target specific commodity, such as carbon tariff or tax.

Innovative ways and mechanisms are needed to enable developing countries to benefit more efficiently from existing funds of the bilateral and multilateral financial institutions, provided that those do not unduly burden these countries, and be at the expense of other countries.

Last but the least, immediate attention should go to strengthening and ensuring the meaningful and full participation of developing countries in the bilateral and multilateral regional and international financial and development institutions.

Thank you for your kind attention.