Mr. Chairman,

The Chinese delegation is grateful to the Secretary General for the report he submitted under this item. We also support the statement made by the distinguished representative of Venezuela on behalf of the Group of 77 and China.

Globalization is inevitable result of the development of productive forces and of science and technology. It promotes the gradual optimization of the economic factors on a global scale, thus enhancing economic efficiency. However, since global governance has not kept pace with the rapid development of market globalization, the negative impact of the latter has greatly increased, further aggravating the inequities in the global financial and trading systems. Many developing countries have been left in difficult situations as a result of the negative impact. The Millennium Declaration calls for globalization to become a positive force benefiting all peoples of the world. How to meet this challenge and how to balance out the benefits of market globalization on the one hand and equitable global governance on the other are issues that need to be addressed.

We note that the gist of the Secretary-General's report is about economic governance and I would like to make a few observations on this point.

Firstly, global democratization must go hand in hand with global integration. This will require us to reform the existing global financial, monetary and trading systems, making them more equitable and democratic, and increase developing countries' participation in global decision making and norms setting so as to have their interests and needs properly reflected. This has been the subject of international consensus after the debate at the International Conference on Financing for Development. Now the problem is how to translate this consensus into reality. We note that the communiqué issued by the Development Committee of the Bretton Woods institutions after its fall meeting has responded positively in this regard and that the item is included in the agenda of its spring meeting next year. We hope to see concrete results then.

Secondly, globalization should respect diversity and ownership. Facts show that globalization does not necessarily mean that there ought to be a uniform model to development. In view of the existing differences in social systems, development levels and cultural traditions, it is necessary for countries in the process of globalization, to have the right to choose independently their own way to development and to determine, in light of their own national conditions, the modality, sequence and pace of their opening up. It is also necessary for globalization to promote increased exchanges between cultures on the basis of mutual respect and to promote tolerance and harmonious co-existence, thus injecting new vitality into progress of mankind. The practice of imposing one and the same model on all countries will lead us nowhere.

Thirdly, globalization should enhance the policy coherence and consistency amongst multilateral economic institutions. The UN Conference on Financing for Development is characterized, inter alia, by its integrated approach to financial, trade, investment and development cooperation issues and the involvement of the World Bank, IMF and WTO in their discussions. This has indeed strengthened the communications and policy coherence between the UN and the three major economic institutions in the world and policy coherence at the national level needs to be enhanced as well. As stated in the Secretary General's report, developed countries spend 300 billion US dollars each year on agriculture subsidies, six times the amount of their development aid. This not only has a negative impact on trade of the developing countries, but also cancelled out the effect of their development aid. The coherence between their development cooperation policies and their economic policies is a matter that needs to be urgently addressed. We are of the view that this kind of policy coherence and consistency is essential. We hope that policy coherence of various institutions at the global level will promote the development of the developing countries, narrow the gap between the North and the South and lead to global prosperity. The United Nations should play a leading role in this regard.

Fourthly, globalization should foster interdependence and solidarity. A prominent feature of globalization is shared interests and responsibilities. Those who practice a beggar-thy-neighbor policy or are indifferent to the troubles of others will eventually be in danger themselves and see their policy backfire, a truth profoundly borne out in the Asian financial crisis. It is our view that in the context of globalization, international relations ought to be based on multilateralism and mutual cooperation aimed at global development and security. For this purpose, we call for increased international cooperation on the basis of the principle of equality and mutual benefit and effective implementation of the relevant development goals and tasks in poverty eradication, resources and technology transfers and capacity building, thus resolving once and for all the pressing problems in world economic development and realizing the cherished goal of globalization: shared benefits and shared prosperity.

I thank you Mr. Chairman.