| UNCTAD: Poorest countries should be put on G20 agenda |
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“The LDCs will not be able to recover from the crisis because of the fluctuations in commodity prices. China has been stocking commodities and prices have gone up,” he said. “But now prices may go down again and LDCs will not be able to depend on commodities export only.” The international development agency Oxfam is pressing G20 leaders to agree a global bank tax as a means of providing aid to the world’s poorest countries, to help their recovery from the economic crisis. Oxfam spokesperson Mark Fried said: “This is a once-in-a generation opportunity for the G20 to reshape the global economy in favour of poor people. We can never return to a situation where the greed of the richest takes precedence over the needs of billions. However the G20 chooses to structure the tax, it should bail out not banks, but the world's poorest people.” “A financial sector tax is the best option to deliver the scale of resources needed to recover from the financial crisis. The G20 must now seize the moment and deliver a tax that will to raise resources to tackle poverty and climate change. Finance ministers meeting this week must agree a roadmap for taxing the financial sector, and close the deal at their upcoming Canada summit.” Sources:
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At a press meeting in Geneva last week, Dr Supachai Panitchpakdi, secretary general of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), told journalists that he will advise EU members to put the plight of the least developed countries (LDCs) on the agenda of the G20 summit in Toronto, Canada on 26-27 June.
