President Kufuor attends Langkawi Dialogue

Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) President, 36 leaders at SMART confab (02-08-2002)

From Kojo Sam, Langkawi, Malaysia

PRESIDENT J. A. Kufuor has arrived in the Malaysian sea-side city of Langkawi to attend the Global 2002 Smart Partnership International Dialogue which opened yesterday.

The four-day conference is being attended by the leaders of 36 emerging economies from all parts of the world.

President Kufuor is attending the conference after a four-day visit to Malaysia during which he held discussions with political and business leaders of that country.

Early yesterday, 450 businessmen, investors, financiers and Information Technology experts had also registered to participate in the dialogue.

Malaysia itself has more than 100 participants and indications are that more participants will arrive in Langkawi to participate in the dialogue.

The meeting will focus on terrorism, global economy and social issues including how to combat poverty which is facing the majority of the world’s population.

Global 2002 incorporates the Langkawi International Dialogue, Southern Africa International Dialogue and the East Africa International Dialogue. The first to arrive was the Mauritius Prime Minister, Sir Aneerood Jugnauth.

Also in Langkawi for the summit are President Sam Nujoma of Namibia, South Africa’s Deputy President, Jacob Zuma, and former Botswana President, Sir Ketumile Masire.

President Kufuor, in his determination to attract investors into Ghana in line with his policy of Golden Age of Business, is expected to lobby more investors to take advantage of the stable political and economic environment, to invest in the country.

With him to do the lobbying include the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Hackman Owusu-Agyeman, the Minister of Private Sector Development, Mr Kwamena Bartels, the Minister of Communications and Technology, Mr Felix Owusu-Adjapong as well as the President of the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI), Mrs Joyce Villars and the Resident Director of VALCO, Dr Charles Mensa.

Areas the President and his delegation will be focussing on include IT, tourism, agriculture, housing and infrastructural development.

The dialogue will also discuss the role of the Commonwealth Partnership for Technology Management (CPTM) and the leaders are expected to synchronise the objectives of the CPTM and the Langkawi International Dialogue introduced in 1995.

The Malaysian Prime Minister, Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who is expected to open the dialogue, said in a preamble statement that "we believe our discussions in the past had contributed towards firming up personal relations within the Commonwealth.

His wife, Datin Seri Dr Siti Hasmah Mohd Ali, is also expected to exchange ideas with the spouses of the participating Heads of State and Government on the way forward for the advancement of women.

Meanwhile, the Malaysian Prime Minister, in a powerful speech delivered at a state banquet in honour of the visiting Heads of State and delegates, said poor countries live in fear of the predatory rich bent on taking over their economies and countries.

He said globalisation and free trade along with democracy are being touted as the saviours of the world and in particular, the poor.

“But our experiences up till now is that we are being destabilised and robbed,” the Prime Minister said. He noted that the poor countries have always relied on the natural commodities they produce in order to export and earn foreign exchange with which to buy needed industrial goods.

“But we have seen how every year we have to sell more and more of our largely depleting resources in order to buy less and less of the goods we need,” he said.

The Prime Minister said developing countries are being held to ransom because the rich countries are not entirely dependent on us for raw materials for their industry.

“They have a choice of sources and they control the market and the prices. They do not really care whether we buy their products or not because their markets are mainly among the rich countries,” Dr Mahathir said.

He said the developed world is cheating the poor ones because they invent and produce their own raw materials in order to compete with our natural products.

For instance, he said, rubber is displaced by synthetics, tin by plastics, glass, paper, aluminium and numerous other packaging materials and now they have genetically modified products such as soya bean oil to oust palm oil from the market.

“Genetic modification is going to impoverish further the agro wealth of poor countries,” the Malaysian leader warned. He, therefore, urged developing countries to stand united and fight what he called “economic terrorism being unleashed by the developed countries.

“Now we are being pressed to swallow globalisation and free market,” he said, adding that “these are the people who are supposed to bring us prosperity, who are going to discipline us and ensure that we have high moral standards. It is a big laugh”.

He accused the international media of and the governments of the liberalised world for working hard to destabilise and undermine governments which are stable or remain in power for long, even if they are democratically-elected and are above board.

The theme for the four-day dialogue is “social cohesion in fighting economic terrorism”.