Leaders of China, Brazil, India, Mexico, South Africa call for joint efforts to ensure food, energy security

Five major developing nations call for joint efforts to ensure food, energy security

www.chinaview.cn 2008-07-08 19:32:54

SAPPORO, Japan, July 8 (Xinhua) --

Leaders of China, Brazil, India, Mexico and South Africa on Tuesday called for a shared responsibility to address the world's food security and an overall cooperation by the international community to boost energy development and utilization.

"We call upon the international community to devise better ways and means of producing and distributing food," said a joint declaration signed by Chinese President Hu Jintao and the leaders from Brazil, India, Mexico and South Africa after a group meeting on the sidelines of the Group of Eight Summit.

"Multi-billion agricultural trade-distorting support in developed countries have hampered the development of food production capacity in developing countries, critically reducing their possibilities of reaction to the present crisis," said the leaders.

They stressed the "imperative of creating an enabling international environment for agro-produce related trade, establishing a just and reasonable international trade regime for agricultural products and concluding the Doha Round with meaningful commitments to agricultural subsidies reductions."

They also urged developed countries to "increase their emergency aid at an early date," noting the food security crisis demands "a rapid and substantial increase in the allocation of resources to support rural development and combat hunger and poverty."

These leaders said they "encourage collaborative action for better seeds and farm outputs that are sustainable and environmentally sound as well as a comprehensive approach in all fields including finance, trade, aid, environment, intellectual property rights and technology transfer, so as to create a conductive international environment for food security."

On biofuels, they said "it is essential to address the challenges and opportunities posed by biofuels" and the current food security crisis has "multiple and complex causes whose assessment requires objectiveness."

Biofuels, if developed sustainably, "can effectively contribute to generating opportunities and achieving food and energy security altogether," they said.

"To this purpose, it is important that public policies for production of biofuels contribute to sustainable development and the well-being of the most vulnerable people and do not threaten food security," they concluded.

On energy security, which "is essential to ensure the steady growth of the global economy," the five developing countries' leaders said the world should emphasize renewable energy and energy efficiency and give "adequate consideration to solar, wind and hydro-electrical power, and biofuels such as ethanol and bio-diesel without adversely affecting food security."

"More efforts should be made to develop clean energy technologies that are affordable, environment-friendly and suitable to the conditions of developing countries, ensuring that these technologies be adequately transferred to developing countries," they said.

They also called for "an integrated approach to international energy cooperation and international development cooperation, ensuring access to energy by developing countries on an equitable and sustainable manner."

Editor: Bi Mingxin

China's Hu proposes priorities for further cooperation among five major developing countries

www.chinaview.cn 2008-07-08 19:18:03

·Hu put forward 4 priority areas for cooperation and coordination among five countries. ·Hu Jintao said the five countries have vast potential for cooperation. ·He stressed the importance of strengthening solidarity and cooperation.

SAPPORO, Japan, July 8 (Xinhua) --

Chinese President Hu Jintao on Tuesday put forward four priority areas for cooperation and coordination among the five major developing countries of China, India, Brazil, South Africa and Mexico.

Hu made the proposal at a meeting of leaders of five developing countries on the eve of an outreach session of the Group of Eight (G8) summit.

Over the past year, coordination mechanism at various levels among the five countries have taken initial shape, said Hu.

He said that as their efforts have yielded positive results, the five major developing nations need to build on their achievements and continue their efforts in the following priority areas:

-- Strengthening solidarity and coordination and promoting common development.

As active participants in economic globalization and with increasing ties with the international market, the five developing countries have become an important part of the world economic architecture and a major driving force for global economic growth.

Under such circumstances, intensified consultation and coordination and closer cooperation of mutual benefit among the five are most needed to minimize the impact of unfavorable factors and maintain the momentum and dynamism of the fast economic growth of the five as well as to make continued contribution to world economic development.

-- Stepping up coordination and advancing South-South cooperation.

South-South cooperation is an important channel for developing countries to draw on each other's strengths and achieve common development.

The five developing countries should push forward reforms in international economic financial, trade and development regimes, uphold the legitimate rights and interests of developing countries and enhance their capacity to tackle various risks and challenges, and promote balanced, coordinated and sustainable growth of the global economy.

-- Taking a long-term view and promoting North-South dialogue.

The world economic growth cannot be sustained if developing countries remain in a state of backwardness. The five developing nations should continue to work in an active and pragmatic way under the principle of seeking common ground while shelving differences, and help forge a new North-South partnership featuring equality, mutual benefit, cooperation and win-win progress.

-- Working together to shoulder responsibilities.

As most of the hot-spot issues in today's world directly affect the interests of developing countries, the five have the need and responsibility to work together to exert positive influence on global affairs, increase the say of developing countries and make greater contribution to the building of a harmonious world of enduring peace and common prosperity.

The five countries have vast potential for cooperation, said Hu, adding that strengthening solidarity and cooperation is not only in the interests of their own people, but also in the common interests of people all over the world.

The Chinese president arrived here late Monday for the outreach session of the Group of Eight (G8) summit scheduled for Wednesday in the northern Japanese resort of Toyako.

Fair Use Notice

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.