Excellencies,

Distinguished members of the media

Delegates,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am extremely pleased that following a week of intensive work, debates and meetings, we will soon be achieving a successful conclusion of the Conference. 

On behalf of my Government and on my own behalf, I would like to express our most sincere appreciations to His Excellency Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General of the United Nations, to all the staff of the UN Secretariat, distinguished Heads of Delegations of the member states, parliamentarians, inter-governmental and non-governmental organizations, civil society and media representatives, intellectuals, private sector and the Host Committee, for their hard work and tireless efforts.

As the Chair of the Fourth United Nations Conference on the LDCs, I am proud and happy to state that the Istanbul Conference, constitutes a significant step forward in addressing the problems confronted by the Least Developed Countries. It represents the political will and determination of the Heads of State and Government of the member states, the leaders of the international community and other stake holders.

From the outset, Turkey has expressed its willingness and readiness not only to host the Conference but also to contribute to its substance by taking active part in the preparatory process and the negotiations of the outcome documents.

Turkey has done everything in its power to achieve a successful conclusion. There is no doubt that, we all have reached that stage, through a long preparatory process. During the last two years, several regional and thematic meetings at were held in Dhaka, Addis Ababa, New York, Geneva, Vienna, Lisbon, Caen, Istanbul and New Delhi. I have personally attended the New Delhi ministerial meeting.  

Distinguished members of the media,

I am also very pleased to announce that the turnout at the Conference has been a great success. A total of 8931 people have been accredited to the Conference. We believe that, together with the off-site activities, the number of participants have exceeded 10.000. 36 Heads of State and Government, 96 Ministers and 66 presidents of international organizations attended the Conference. Such a high-level of attendance is testimony of the priority given to the LDCs by the international community.

I also thank the media for the extensive press coverage we have received, for the last week regarding the Conference. I truly acknowledge the invaluable contributions of the media as well as the civil society in sensitizing the international public opinion to the challenges faced by the LDCs.

Of course, the success of this Conference cannot be based on such numbers, only. I am glad that a comprehensive Program of Action and Istanbul Declaration with strong commitments is agreed upon.

The Istanbul Program of Action is a comprehensive document that contains actions to be taken until 2020 both by the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and in the international arena for the sustainable development of the LDCs. Targeting the 48 LDCs with a total population of nearly 900 million, Action Program  primarily aims to eradicate poverty. It represents a significant step forward in our efforts to address this very important issue. This document confirms and strengthens the cooperation and partnership commitments of the international community to the LDCs. In this document, the cooperation framework and the responsibilities of the UN system, international institutions such as World Bank, IMF and WTO, developed countries as the development partners, developing countries within the context of South-South Cooperation and LDCs themselves are thoroughly noted. Setting new goals, Istanbul Program of Action is a guiding document for development. 

Istanbul Programme of Action that consists of nearly 50 pages and more than 150 comprehensive articles, covers all the sectors ranging from trade to industry, from tourism to education and health.  Turkey has assumed the responsibility of putting LDC related topics into the agenda of international community and contributing to the efforts for finding solutions to the problems of the LDCs until 2020. In a way, Turkey has been the voice of the LDCs. 

The core elements of the Istanbul Programme of Action are increasing the productive capacities of the LDCs and promoting investments to this aim. Whereas, in Brussels the main elements were Aid for Trade and social development.

The Brussels Programme of Action has been criticized for not yielding the desired results and for lack of efficient monitoring. In the Istanbul Programme of Action, a special emphasis has been made on monitoring. 

Negotiations essentially focused on trade, investment and Official Development Aid (ODA) at the Conference in Istanbul. While the target of ODA was set as 0.15-0.2 per cent of the GDP in  the Brussels Programme of Action, it remained at 0.09 per cent on average. 

LDCs which have natural resources such as petroleum and mineral resources recorded a growth rate of nearly 7 %. On the other hand, growth rate of more than half of the LDCs remained below 2 % or they have recorded negative growth rate.  Furthermore, 400 million people in the LDCs live under extreme poverty conditions. Despite that, developed countries abstained from additional financial commitments in the Conference, however, they strongly reaffirmed their ODA commitments of Brussels Programme of Action and also have declared their intention to elevate the level of their commitments after 2015.     

Istanbul Declaration, on the other hand reflects the political will of the international community to realize all these goals and objectives.

Finally, I would like to call upon all the members of the media to continue covering the LDC development agenda and carry on their activities to increase awareness of the global community on this important issue. 

Thank you.