Mr. Chairman,

The Chinese delegation wishes to thank Under-Secretary-General Jan Beagle for introducing the financial situation of the United Nations. We associate ourselves with the statement by Egypt on behalf of the Group of 77 and China and would like to make the following comments and suggestions on the financial situation of the United Nations.

Firstly, financial resources constitute the foundation and a major support for the governance of the United Nations. A stable and healthy financial situation is a sine qua non for the United Nations to deliver its mandates and a guarantee for advancing its reforms. China, as a staunch supporter of the United Nations’ undertakings, has paid all its assessed contributions on time and in full. According to the information from the Secretariat, 41 member states, including China, had paid all their assessed contributions in full before May 11. The Chinese delegation wishes to express its appreciation to the countries that have paid their assessed contributions on time and in full.

Secondly, the financial situation of the United Nations does not allow for optimism. As of April 30, the outstanding payments of the Member States for assessed contribution in regular budget, peacekeeping assessments, and international tribunals’ assessments had amounted to 1.56 billion, 2.27 billion, and 83 million U.S. dollars respectively. We call on Member States to pay all their assessed contributions on time, in full and without conditions. Countries that have the capacity to do so, especially those with large outstanding payments, should unconditionally pay all the unpaid assessments as expeditiously as possible in a genuine gesture to support the United Nations and its reforms.

Thirdly, it requires the joint efforts of both the Member States and the Secretariat to tackle the financial difficulties of the United Nations. We hope that the Secretariat will take effective measures to strengthen the budget management, respect budget rigidity, tighten the financial discipline, use the financial resources more efficiently, and wisely manage and spend every penny from the taxpayers in the member states.

And fourthly, we noted that as of April 30, the United Nations had an outstanding payment as large as 1.205 billion US dollars in the form of unpaid reimbursement to the TCCs/PCCs. These are the countries that have made great contributions to the UN peacekeeping operations and deserve appropriate and timely reimbursements. We hope that the Secretariat will take effective measures to pay out the unpaid reimbursements for the expenses of the TCCs/PCCs as expeditiously as possible.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.