UN talks on access for low-income landlocked states termed 'grand success'

An international conference aimed at securing better market access for low-income landlocked countries, which ended in Almaty, Kazakhstan, today, was "a grand success," a senior United Nations official said.

"During a week of intensive negotiations, international trade and trade facilitation issues provoked serious debate," Anwarul Chowdhury, UN High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States, told a news briefing.

Delegates at talks preceding the two-day conference established the Almaty Programme of Action, the first global action plan negotiated at the ministerial level that provides a framework for cooperation between landlocked and the transit access developing countries, promising reductions in red tape and transportation costs and time.

Transport services through access countries consume on average 15 per cent of the export earnings of landlocked developing countries - and as much as half for some African landlocked nations. In comparison, other developing countries expend an average of only 7 per cent on transport services, and the developed countries only 3 to 4 per cent.

The Programme establishes for the first time agreement in principle on compensating landlocked countries for their geographical handicaps with improved market access and trade facilitation. Nine of the 12 lowest-ranking countries on the UN Human Development Index are landlocked, and economists estimate that landlocked status costs these countries about 0.7 per cent in rate of economic growth each year.

In addition to the 30 landlocked developing countries participating in the talks, there were 33 transit access developing countries, nine donor countries, seven additional developing countries and 20 UN and international agencies and financial institutions.