Mr. Chairman,

Let me first congratulate you on your election as Chairman of the Third Committee and assure you and other members of the bureau of the full cooperation and support of the Chinese Delegation. The Chinese delegation welcomes the reports submitted by the Secretary-General under this agenda item and associates itself with the statement made by the representative of Yemen on behalf of the Group of 77 and China.

World economy is now undergoing a slow recovery; that recovery, however, is still precarious. The deeper impact of the international financial crisis is yet to be totally removed and the recovery of employment noticeably lags behind that of the economy. At the same time, development of many countries continues to be hampered by a multitude of global problems such as climate change, food and energy crises, communicable diseases and natural disasters. The recently concluded UN High-level Plenary Meeting on MDGs has refocused the attention of the international community on the issue of development and injected new vitality into the endeavor to achieve development goals by taking full stock of the past decade’s experiences and lessons in the field of development and formulating a plan of action for the next five years. The international community must actively implement the outcome of the High-level Plenary Meeting and overcome the unfavorable impact of factors such as the world financial crisis so as to achieve the MDGs as scheduled. The Chinese delegation believes that the international community should focus its efforts on the following areas:

First, create a favorable international environment for development. The United Nations should continue to play a central role in the field of international cooperation for development. Efforts must be made to move forward economic globalization in the direction of a balanced, universally beneficial and win-win situation, create a favorable trade and investment environment and enabling conditions of economic development in order to promote social progress, enhance policy ownership of the developing countries, provide necessary financing and capacity support for poverty reduction, education, health and other areas of social development, and gradually bring about inclusive and balanced development.

Second, provide greater support to developing countries. The impact of the international financial crisis has slowed down the economic growth and social development of the developing countries. Developed countries must effectively deliver their commitment on ODA, honor in good faith commitments on women's and children's health, education and other areas, enhance accountability and support the developing countries in their efforts to improve people’s livelihood and the level of their overall development with a view to fully achieving the MDGs.

Third, enhance exchanges of experience among developing countries. Developing countries, though varied in national conditions and social systems, are faced with the common task of development. They have accumulated plenty of successful experience in areas of poverty eradication, enhancing social security and health care, improving access to universal primary education and employment promotion and can learn from each other and make joint progress through further exchanging experience and sharing best practices in these areas.

Fourth, scale up South-South cooperation. South-South cooperation is an important means for developing countries to learn from one another and seek common development as well as an important channel for mutual assistance to cope with various crises. Efforts must be made to further expand and deepen South-South cooperation, enhance social and human exchanges, increase training and capacity-building, scale up exchanges and technical cooperation in agriculture, education and health to strengthen the capacity of developing countries for self-development.

Mr. Chairman,

By adhering to its people-centered, integrated and sustainable approach to development, my government strives to accelerate the transformation of our mode of economic development, and to readjust at a faster pace our national income distribution pattern, urban-rural development structure, regional development structure and industrial structure. We have significantly increased input in social services, implemented more proactive employment policies, and improved the level of equal access to social security and primary healthcare. In 2009, the central government’s expenditure in education, health care, social security, employment, affordable housing and culture increased by 31.7%. Thanks to the enormous efforts to increase the coverage of primary medical insurance, more than 1.2 billion people were included in the primary medical insurance system by the end of 2009. China pays great attention to the work of increasing literacy. We have set up government-led literacy mechanisms with broad participation of all sectors of the society and carried out various forms of literacy campaign in rural and poor areas. In 2008, the illiteracy rate among the youth and adults fell to 3.58%, making the literacy goal for the youth and adults nearly a reality.

Mr. Chairman,

China has been providing assistance to other developing countries within its capacity and has contributed to their economic development and the improvement of their people’s livelihood. China has worked vigorously to build hospitals and schools in Africa and other regions, provided training and free medical equipments and drugs, and dispatched about 21,000 person-times on medical missions to 69 developing countries and regions, providing medical service to about 260 million local people. China has offered government scholarships to over 70,000 students from developing countries and provided training to 120,000 trainees from 173 developing countries and regions. We have also reduced and cancelled debts of the least developed countries; by the end of 2009, China cancelled 25.6 billion RMB yuan of debts owed by 50 heavily-indebted poor countries and least developed countries. Within the framework of South-South cooperation, China will continue to provide concrete support to other developing countries in their efforts for self-development.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.