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Doha (Qatar), Apr 21 (UNB) - Ministers from the world’s 48 least developed countries (LDCs) at the UNCTAD XIII here on Saturday adopted a declaration with a call for strengthening UNCTAD and bolstering its research, technical-cooperation and consensus-building works.

The UNCTAD XIII focused on the theme of ‘Development-centred globalisation’.

The declaration reaffirms the LDCs’ support for the concept ‘Developmental State’ long advocated by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

Observing that the LDCs currently account for only one percent of international trade and that they attract foreign investment mostly to their extractive industries which tend to create a few jobs and tend not to lead to broader domestic economic development, the declaration says that “efforts to build the Developmental State” are the “key to drive economic growth.”

“We underline the importance of the balanced role of the State and market considerations, where the State designs policies and institutions with a view to achieving sustainable and inclusive economic growth as well as creates an appropriate enabling stable, transparent, and rules-based economic environment for the effective functioning of markets,” the declaration reads.

It also urges for redoubling efforts by “trading and development partners, including developing countries that are in a position to do so” to support the LDCs in their efforts to expand, diversify, and fortify their economies and in their efforts to meet the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The MDGs include such targets are halving extreme poverty by 2015.

The declaration says that such assistance “should go beyond ODA (official development assistance) to include, in a holistic manner, transfer of technology and know-how as well as building technological capacities and innovation in our countries.” It also urges industrialised nations to meet internationally-established targets for ODA.

The LDC Ministerial Declaration also echoes UNCTAD’s stress on expanding LDCs’ productive capacities -- the abilities of their economies to produce broader varieties of goods, and goods of greater sophistication.

The declaration urges the donor countries to “support the commodity sectors of the LDCs, including through commodity diversification and value addition,” to enable LDCs “greater participation in global value chains on an equitable basis as a way to promote sustainable market-driven growth.”

It also calls for “easing the burden of demanding quality and delivery standards” for LDCs’ exports seeking to enter developed-country markets.”