Indonesia to host high-level advisory meeting on G-77 South Summit

UNITED NATIONS, Feb -- The High-level Advisory Meeting on the G-77 South Summit initiative will be held in Jakarta from 1 to 3 June 1998, announced a spokesman of the Office of the Chairman of the Group of 77 in New York. More than 30 high-level experts and eminent personalities from the three developing regions are expected to attend this gathering. The advisory meeting is being convened within the context of the mandate of the twenty-first annual ministerial meeting of the Group of 77 held last September in New York. In their final declaration the Ministers "expressed their full support for convening a South Summit at an appropriate date in the near future, as called for in the San Jose Declaration on South-South Cooperation.”

At the turnover ceremony of the Group of 77 Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas said such an experts group meeting could also formulate inputs towards a possible South-South Summit as called for in the San Jose Declaration on South-South Cooperation.

''Since our Group is one of the main deliberative forums within the United Nations, we should endeavour to adapt to the reforms that the Organization must undergo so that we, too, could judiciously respond to the challenges of the new millennium and play a constructive role within the framework of the United Nations,'' he said.

The foreign minister said he was pleased to announce that the Indonesian Government is prepared to convene also a high-level conference on strengthening cooperation among the regional economic groupings of the developing countries.

The meeting is expected to formulate conclusions and recommendations to be submitted to the next ministerial meeting of the Group of 77 to be held next September in New York for appropriate consideration. The G-77 South Summit ,which is expected to be held before the year 2000, has been strongly supported by the annual G-77 chapters' meeting held recenlty in Geneva.

The preparations of the meeting are being overseen by the Office of the Chairman of the Group of 77 in New York in close collaboration with the Permanent Mission of Indonesia to the United Nations. A national organizing committee was set up in Jakarta with a view to coordinating preparations with the Office of the Chairman.

According to a spokesman of the Office of the Chairman of the Group of 77 in New York, the meeting will take place in Hotel Borobudur Intercontentinental and will be opened by Ali Alatas, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Indonesia. The meeting is expected to address, inter alia, the key issue of South-South cooperation in the era of globalization with a special focus on the ongoing efforts to strengthen the collective action of developing countries at the global level so as to enhance international cooperation for development.