SPEECH OF HIS EXCELENCY JOAQUIM ALBERTO CHISSANO, PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF MOZAMBIQUE IN THE OPENING CEREMONY OF IV SUMMIT

SPEECH OF HIS EXCELENCY JOAQUIM ALBERTO CHISSANO, PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF MOZAMBIQUE IN THE OPENING CEREMONY OF IV SUMMIT OF THE ACP GROUP OF COUNTRIES

MAPUTO, 23^rd JUNE, 2004

His Excellency

Laisenia Karase,

President of the Sovereign and Democratic Republic of Fiji and President of

Third ACP Summit of Heads of State and Government

Excellencies Heads of State and Government,

Honourable George Moussa

Chairman of ACP Council of Ministers,

Honourable Jean-Robert Goulougana, Secretary General of the ACP Group,

Honourable K.Y. Amoako

Representative of the Secretary General of the United Nations,

Honourable Tom Kitt

Representative of the Chairman in Office of the European Union,

Honourable Glenn Kinnock

Co-Chairman of the Paritary Parliamentary Assembly,

Honourable Ramdien Sardjoe

Co-Chairman of the Paritary Parliamentary Assembly,

Honourable

Poul Nielsen

European Commissioner

It is with great honour and satisfaction that, on behalf of the People and Government of Mozambique and on my own, I wish Your Excellencies, a warm welcome to the Republic of Mozambique.

Our people is proud and happy to have you amongst us. We see your presence as prove of the esteem and sympathy accorded by Your Excellencies to our country, and shows, in an unmistakable way, the spirit of unity and solidarity that inspires our Organization.

Our country, Mozambique, and in particular, its capital, Maputo, worked hard to create the conditions to welcome you in the best possible of ways, for you to feel as if you were in your own countries and to host the IV ACP Group Summit.

We are proud and satisfied in receiving Your Excellencies in our country because of what the present Summit means for the ACP Group. As we are here “Together, shaping our Future” we are implanting a great, solid and indelible mark in the course of history of our Group.

In the course of this meeting we are going to look for ways to strengthen the intra-ACP cooperation. It is this cooperation that gives us more strength to better coordinate our negotiations with our partners from the more advanced countries and contribute to safeguard the environment, peace, security and stability.

All this shall strengthen our political identity as a Group, giving us the possibility of implementing efficient actions in the international arena in order to face the challenges of globalization. In this way we can be in better conditions to fulfil our task, as developing countries side by side with the developed countries, and multilateral institutions in a global partnership for achieving the Millennium Development Goals, which are endangered by the lack of political, will to fulfil the assumed compromises.

I would like to take this opportunity to underline the special meaning for Mozambique in hosting this summit in June. On 25^th of June, we celebrate twenty nine years of independence. The date coincides with twenty nine years since the birth of the ACP Group in Georgetown, capital city of Guiana. This year, we also celebrate twenty years of cooperation between Mozambique and the European Community. It is a good occasion to take stock of our activity and to give it a new impulse.

Mr President.

Excellencies,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We host the IV ACP Group Summit in a period of great historic importance for our country as we are in the eve of the third Presidential and Legislative Multiparty elections, scheduled for the first two days of December this year, which will mark another step forward in the consolidation of peace, stability and democracy.

Peace and stability have been decisive factors in the process of re-launching the socio-economic development of the country. We realise with satisfaction the continuous growth of our economy. The quality of life of our people is substantially improving.

These results were achieved thanks to combination of many factors. In the first place, there is the determination of the Mozambican people in not sparing efforts to organize themselves, in each family and community, to produce as much as they can with the little and precarious means that they have.

The Mozambican people do not want to face poverty as a fate. There is a say in one of the local languages which goes as follows: “Anything needs something, if you want something you must do something, if you do not do anything, you will receive nothing”.

This simply means, count with your own strength in the first place, than you shall be helped.

Thus the family sector, the peasants join the workers from the informal sector, the agricultural, trader, private sector, small and medium enterprises and the big ones or even the mega enterprises, in a common effort to increase production. These efforts are being taken in the context of policies, strategies, programmes and projects conceived through dialogue between different actors and sectors. The industrial, agricultural, commercial sectors, the so-called economic sectors, know their importance for the advancement of the social sectors. The social sectors such as education, health, culture, and others, also know their role for the improvement of the whole economy. They all know that to work well means to work for the well-being of the Mozambican people, men and women, old, young or child, disabled or not, that must not be only seen as an element of the population counting for demographic statistics but as a citizen owner of his human rights and of citizenship.

The government is committed to coordinate these efforts based on all macro-economic policies, looking to persuade its cooperation partners to go along, in guaranteeing efficient use of contributions from bilateral or multilateral partners and correcting the faults, mistakes, taking lessons to construct a society of progress. In building the State of Law from the ground, they face of course the natural difficulties, associated with the institutional building of Justice Administration, Law and Order. Laws are being adopted; obsolete legal systems are progressively being reformed as human capacities are being improved.

This is what gives the Mozambican people not only the hope but also the certainty of a better future.

It is the Government policy to constantly change for the better, with the strength of change based on the people. The Public Sector Reform aims at providing better services to all the citizens.

All this gives the international community the will to help us. It is all this combined with our openness for a constructive dialogue with all partners, including national and foreign investors, to jointly construct the sense of mutual trust and security of their investments and the correct use of incentives that we provide.

We would like here to stress the positive role that has been played by the European Union particularly in budget support, in the construction of transport infrastructures, in supporting food security, in agriculture, in fighting HIV/AIDS, and health in general, and in the development of Good Governance.

Beyond the good results, we have not achieved yet the desired living standards. This is why we still channel all our efforts towards fighting absolute poverty, endemic diseases as HIV/AIDS, malaria and the tuberculoses, as well as consolidating and deepening our democratic institutions.

Likewise are our priorities, actions that aim at the maintenance and increase capitals flows and of investments, as well as improvement of the reforms in the economic, public and judicial sectors.

Excellencies,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

As Chairman of the African Union, an honour conferred to Mozambique during the Maputo Summit last July, we are committed to consolidate the organization to realize our programmatic vision for the sustainable development of the continent, New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD).

In this context, the resolution of conflicts aimed at establishment peace and stability in the whole continent is of major importance, now that Africans together with the international community are cooperating in implementing different NEPAD initiatives.

The objectives of NEPAD are common to the ACP Group and are part of the global struggle to create abetter world. They presuppose a global partnership with other southern partners, such as the Movement of Non Aligned Countries, African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries, of Asiatic Southeast, Latin America and others.

So, it is important that the spirit of collaboration prevails, of solidarity and continuous support of our countries and international partners in the implementation of NEPAD.

Excellencies,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The ACP Group knows how to face coherently, the different challenges that appeared in its path.

Now we face the challenge of preserving and strengthening the unity and solidarity of our Group, in this particular moment of the relations with our partners of the European Union, within the context of the negotiations of the Economic Partnership Agreements ACP-EU.

The Cotonou Agreement marks a turn in the ACP-EU relations through a renewed partnership oriented towards the central objective of fighting and eradicating poverty and for the progressive integration of the regions and the ACP countries into the world economy.

It is in this context that we are confronted today with the demands of the rules of multilateral commerce, particularly the need of adopting a framework of ACP-EU commercial relations compatible with the new reality, for in the medium and long terms, the commercial regime of non-reciprocal agreed by the Lome Convention can not continue.

We are sure that being the principle of reciprocity an innovative element of our relationship with EU, and one pre-requisite to make the Economic Partnership Agreements (ACPs) compatible with multilateral rules of commerce defined by the World Trade Organization (WTO), the principle must be analysed and applied with due consideration and taking into account the asymmetries amongst our countries.

We understand that no strategy to fight against poverty can be sustainable if we are not able to ensure, in the best possible of ways, the integration of Least Developed Countries (LDCs) in the world economy. In this perspective, we would like to reiterate that the future ACP-EU commercial relations are to be negotiated in a environment of openness and transparency that takes into account not only commercial issues, but also others related to the development, above all those related to the transfer of technology and know-how.

In the context of the principles established by the WTO, we must promulgate policies that can promote commerce and investments, starting with areas of common interest.

The Least Developed Countries (LDCs) regarded the Marrakech Agreements as an opportunity and instrument to improve the gains of its participation in the multilateral system of commerce. However, a substantial part of Marrakech Agreements continue to be implemented.

The Doha Development Agenda (DDA) which intended to allow developing countries to improve their share in the commercial multilateral system did not have the desired effect. The Fourth Ministerial Conference of Commerce which took place in Cancun, in Mexico, did not bring the positive results we aspired.

As it was referred in the recently terminated UNTACD XI Conference, the international development policies must ensure the necessary coherence to correct the asymmetries and the prevailing disequilibrium’s. In this sense, we reaffirm the necessity of the observance of Special Treatment and Differentiated principle not only for LDCs but also for the insular countries, countries of vulnerable economies and the Highly Indebted Countries.

Excellencies,

Ladies and Gentlemen

The cooperation between the ACP Group and our partners of the European Union must continue to be developed in the characteristic spirit of cooperation, which we can see reflected in the Cotonou Agreement.

The current international context and the new configuration of the European Union due to its enlargement, should not, at any moment, become factors that will jeopardise the objectives of our cooperation. The Political Dialogue should be conducted between equal partners and in the spirit of openness, sincerity and frankness, so that our cooperation can, in fact, be strengthened. We must work in close coordination in order to avoid deviating from the contents of the Cotonou Agreement, particularly regarding the Political Dialogue.

The negotiating process of our new Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA) must be seized for the strengthening of regional cooperation and not for the desegregation of our regional blocs. It is only in this way that the outcome of this process can end up having positive impacts in the development process of our countries.

Mr President

Excellencies,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

As I said before, the inter-ACP cooperation, founded in the objectives of Georgetown Agreement, supports the promotion and preservation of unity and solidarity within the ACP Group. It is also the foundation of the identity of the group, as well as for its affirmation in the international arena.

Cohesion, solidarity and unity of the group are the necessary conditions for the advancement of inter-ACP cooperation in order to maximise the resulting benefits.

The Suva Declaration, the Mondego Bay Plan and the Harare Declaration shaped and reinforced inter-ACP cooperation. However, we have not achieved yet the goals then defined.

We appreciate the efforts being undertaken to materialize the cooperation amongst ACP Member States, through various initiatives and projects, such as:

1. The project to fund activities of the ACP countries Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry, and other economic operators;

2. The Charles Katungi training project

3. Women and development project t;

4. ACP Migrants Project

The evaluation that can be made of our cooperation is that there still a lot to be done, taking into account the dimensions of challenges of the ACP Group.

The lack of political will, of support mechanisms, of skills and mobilization of necessary resources, are behind the weak results achieved in the intra-ACP cooperation.

Our commitment and political engagement towards promoting, facilitating and strengthening the process of regional integration and the inter-ACP cooperation, is one of the main requirements to achieve our goals. In this regard, we must translate intentions into actions.

Mr President,

Excellencies,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is urgent for the ACP group to define a clear agenda which does not only deepen our unity and solidarity, but also legitimates us as a coherent force in the international arena.

We are sure that the selected issues for debate in this summit will give an important contribution for the strengthening of ACP Group.

We should seize this opportunity to deepen our views about the future of ACP Group. Evaluating the genesis of our group, we can realise that it has adapted itself to new realities, allowing gathering various experiences, a reason why we can affirm with conviction, that jointly we shall know how to adapt the ACP Group to the new international reality.

Sure about the will and the need to see the ACP Group turned in a strong organization, with a relevant role at international level, allow me to end my speech with a well conceived slogan of IV Summit of ACP Group, because it is certain that we gather here and now “TOGETHER SHAPING OUR FUTURE”.

Thank You Very Much

Maputo, 23^rd June, 2004