Aid for Trade and Regional Integration as Means for Accelerating Development of LLDCs

Aid for Trade and Regional Integrationas Means for Accelerating Development of LLDCs

Introductory remarksBy

Patrick Guillaumont

2nd UN CONFERENCE ON LLDCsVienna, Austria – 4 November 2014 (8.15 - 9.45

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Why this event?

• Conviction, shared by ITC and Ferdi, that Aft and RI are two crucial and complementary instruments to address the specific handicaps of LLDCs,

• Research done at Ferdi to support this argument• In both areas of AfT and RI, with two books published on

these issues during the last 12 months: - Aid for Trade, What Have We Learnt? Which Way Ahead? - Integration internationale pour le développement économique en Zone franc

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A specific need for regional integration in LLDCs

• Assessed from 3 kinds of research • Evaluation of the gains expected from a reinforcement or regional

integration in Africa, gains estimated high in small and vulnerable countries such as landlocked African countries (due to economies of scale and lessening of vulnerability, and requiring « full economic integration », supported by AfT)

• Index of the need for RI, likely to be used for the allocation of funds for supporting RI and relying on 2 components - smallness of domestic market - remoteness of foreign markets, adjusted for a combined effect of landlockness and poor infrastructure

• Aid for Trade assessment

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Session agenda

• Pr Jaime de Melo, Ferdi, on Aid for trade in LLDCs

• Reactions from LLDCs officials:

- Valentine Rugwabiza, Minister of East African Community

- Hachim Koumare, Ministre de l’Equipement, des Transports et du Désenclavement, Mali

- Saley Saidou, Ministre des Transports, Niger

• Remarks from international institutions :

- Dorothy Tembo, Deputy Executive Director, ITC

- Steve Kayizzi-Mugerwa,Acting Vice–President and Chief Economist, AfDB

- Bernardo Calzadilla-Sarmiento, Dr Trade Capacity Building, UNIDO

- Raul Torres, Counsellor, Development Division, WTO

• Keynote remarks by Gyan Acharya, UN USG and High Representative for LDCs, LLDCs and SIDS

• Exhanges with the floor

• Concuding remarks from the panelists