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President calls for pluralistic world based on equality, power sharing



President Chandrika Kumaratunga addressing the World Economic Forum in Singapore

President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga called Asian leaders to undertake the process of building a pluralistic world based on social equality and power sharing.

Addressing the East Asia Economic Summit of the World Economic Forum in Singapore, President Kumaratunga said: "If we do not address ourselves to this most pressing need, people whose rational aspirations have been continuously frustrated through poverty and lack of economic and political power, would continue to engender discontent and despair, leading to violence and terrorism".

South Asia has many highly trained and skilled persons and some of the highest levels of education in the developing world. It also offers the world's single largest market and excellent weather and natural conditions. Although these factors have given the region a strong base to achieve sustained economic growth decades ago, we have failed to draw on our potential to the fullest, she said.

South Asia's ancient civilisation, which has lent it its richness, has been a disadvantage in its forward march to modernity. The creation of modern nation states out of conglomerations of various ethnic, linguistic and social communities has given rise to inherent conflicts within nations. The challenge is to honestly undertake the enterprise of building pluralist, multi-ethnic and multi-cultural nations by managing the existing diversities within our nations and directing the richness of this diversity towards positive change, she said.

The President pointed to the lack of trained personnel to manage governments and their policies as another challenge faced by the region.

She said poorer nations should become partners of the globalised economy and be involved in the processes of formulating policy. "Therefore, the World Trade Organisation and World Trade Agenda will have to be re-negotiated. Principles that underlie decisions on trade must be the same for developed and developing nations.

We do not comprehend how rich nations demand us to abandon vulnerable sectors of our economy to the whims of global markets when they protect such sectors in their countries. We do not believe in magic formulas that brandish brilliant statistics achieved by a privileged few when most of our people languish in the ignominy of poverty. Our vision of development encompasses all people to access equal opportunities to become full players in the development process. Debt forgiveness will have to be adopted as an international policy if huge sections of the world population are to exist at all.

Conditionality in aid to developing countries should be removed and replaced with selective assistance to countries with proven track records of success," she told the summit.

"If we believe in sustainable growth, then we have to promote the practise of economic justice, where recognition of equality with democratic practise would be the cornerstones of adopted strategies. It is time for rich and developed nations to give of their technology, knowledge and financial assistance, not only to secure contracts for their nationals, but also to help alleviate poverty in their former colonies and the negative fall-over from the spread of globalised markets," President Kumaratunga said.

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