failed to mobilize sufficient financial resources for development, due to the high cost of its external debt, the unjust condition of international trade, financial crises, and a lack of national vision. Moreover, foreign organizations had forced the Government to immobilize the country’s financial savings.

Stressing the importance of a social component, if stability was to be achieved in a country, he said social investment was a moral obligation, as well as a condition for economic efficiency. Remittances from Ecuadorians abroad had been an important source of development financing, but had also been costly, since the country had lost many young people who could find no employment at home.

He also emphasized the need to open up international trade, so that developing countries could benefit from wider markets. In addition, theinternational community had an obligation to provide more transparency into international financial decision-making. As for public debt, that would be reduced through fiscal discipline in developing countries, and also through international economic and financial conditions that promoted development.

JAMES SMITH, Minister of State for Finance of the Bahamas, endorsing the statement on behalf of the Group of 77 and China, said his country had had made a concerted effort to enhance its economic and social infrastructure, improving strategic policy frameworks and national accounting systems, enabling the creation of innovative structures in support of entrepreneurship and private-sector development, as well bolstering legislative frameworks in the fight against corruption and money laundering. It had also embraced the opportunities presented by globalization, making the necessary investments in human and physical capital to