Ulaanbaatar
Foreign Minister attends Ministerial Meeting of the Landlocked Developing Countries
Politics
Ulaanbaatar/MONTSAME/. On September 2, a Ministerial Meeting
of the Landlocked Developing Countries (LLDCs) was held virtually as part of the
15th session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD
XV).
The meeting was chaired by Ambassador L. Purevsuren,
Permanent Representative of Mongolia to the United Nations and other
international organizations in Geneva, as the Coordinator of the Group of the Landlocked
Developing Countries.
In her opening remarks, Foreign Minister B. Battsetseg stressed
that LLDCs are facing more challenges than before due to the COVID-19 pandemic
and noted the importance of reducing commodity dependence of the landlocked
developing countries, diversifying the economy and increasing the trade volume
and level of development. Calling on
development and trade partners to step up their efforts in support of LLDCs in
key areas such as transport, logistics, investment, e-commerce and capacity
building, the Minister urged the UNCTAD XV to give the organization more
authority in these areas.
At the meeting, trade and development ministers and
ambassadors of Nepal, Bolivia, Bhutan, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Kazakhstan, Laos and
Paraguay, Acting Secretary-General of the UNCTAD, and Director-General of the
World Health Organization as well as others delivered speeches and exchanged
views on the challenges faced by LLDCs in trade and development and ways to
address them.
In the world, there are currently 44 landlocked
countries, of which 32 are landlocked developing countries. Landlocked
developing countries face many challenges, such as remoteness from seaports and
international markets, high foreign trade costs, as well as high dependency on
transit countries, which make their share in the international trade to be only
1 percent.
At the end of the meeting, Ministers adopted a Ministerial Declaration, addressed to the 15th session of the UN Conference on Trade and Development, which will take place on October 3-7, 2021.
