Mr. Chair,

1. I have the honor to deliver this statement on behalf of the Group of 77 and China.

2. At the outset, I would like to express my appreciation for you, as Chair of the Second Committee of the General Assembly at its seventy-fourth session, the Bureau members and the secretariat for all the efforts exerted to ensure the smooth and successful deliberations of the Committee.

3. Your able guidance, Mr. Chair, has led to conclude our substantive work by the deadline set by the Bureau. Special thanks also go out to the Coordinators, Facilitators and indeed all delegations, who made this possible for all of us.

4. Today, with the conclusion of the Committee's work, I would like to deliver some brief remarks.

5. The Group has submitted multiple resolutions for the consideration of the Committee under its various agenda items with a view to ensure substantive deliberations by the General Assembly on developmental agendas in the economic, environment, and social domains.

6. The Group has engaged constructively, and in good faith, throughout the negotiations with a view to achieve the consensus on the actions needed to address global economic and development challenges. The Group positively considered all proposals suggested by our partners on the basis of their relevance to the issues being considered.

7. The Group approached all proposals with the objective of reaching consensus on matters of importance to the work of the Committee. At times during negotiations, the Group took on proposals despite them going against the Group's preferred positions, making the road to consensus much closer as we moved forward. Throughout the course of the Committee's work, the Group upheld its obligations, and responsibility in preserving the tradition of the work of the Second Committee in adopting its resolutions by consensus, and its established working methods.

8. The Group showed flexibility to engage on new proposals made by partners, engaged on different language, maintained communication channels during the informal and offline discussions, and most importantly, accepted to revert to agreed language where consensus on new language could not be reached.

Mr. Chair,

9. The Group would like to emphasize that the full and effective implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is of the utmost importance for the Group's work in the Committee, with a special focus on the eradication of poverty in all its forms and dimensions, which remains the highest priority in the pursuit of the Agenda.

10. In this regard, the achievement of the ambitious goals of the 2030 Agenda, the Addis Ababa Action Agenda, the Paris Agreement, and the other relevant instruments adopted recently, requires inclusiveness at the international, regional, and country levels. Inclusivity is a longtime objective of the United Nations system and a central promise to the 2030 Agenda, connecting all countries and peoples to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.

11. It is without a doubt that the Group's coordinators on resolutions did excellent work in protecting the interests of developing countries and also worked tirelessly to ensure that poverty eradication in all its forms and dimensions, sustainable development and inclusivity are well-placed in the agenda of the United Nations, going forward. We would like to take this opportunity to express our gratitude to all our G77 coordinators for their tremendous work during the session.

12. The Group would like to lend its strong support and continued engagement to efforts aiming at improving the Committee's work.

13. The Group would like to stress that we have accepted this session, as an exception, the release of the unedited version of the draft resolutions submitted by the Group due to the liquidity crisis that the UN is going through, however, this should not create a precedent for the upcoming sessions.

14. Furthermore, the Group has supported your efforts, and will continue to do so throughout this session and future sessions of the Committee's work to ensure that the Second Committee will collectively strengthen the international goals and targets set out in the 2030 Agenda.

15. In this regard, I would like to reiterate that the Group is committed to multilateralism, and we will continue to do our best endeavors to safeguard consensus by the international community on actions needed to transform our world into a prosperous world for present and future generations.

16. Finally, I would like to seize this opportunity to thank all coordinators and facilitators for the excellent standards of professionalism and commitment they have demonstrated in support of the Committee's work.

17. It is of high importance to build on the Committee's success to strengthen multilateralism and the work of the United Nations in the implementation of the SDGs.

I thank you.