DENMARK: UN SUMMIT ON WORLD POVERTY: FIDEL RAMOS

(12 Mar 1995) English/Nat

Philippine president Fidel Ramos has called on developed countries to honour their U-N commitments and earmark a part of their annual budgets for social development in poor countries.

In an exclusive interview with APTV, Ramos said the U-N poverty conference in Copenhagen should have committed itself to alleviating poverty within a set timescale.

On the final day of the UN 'poverty summit', President Ramos arrived to deliver a speech about democracy and development.

Shortly after being greeted by U-N Secretary General Dr. Boutros Boutros Ghali, Ramos took the podium.

SOUNDBITE:

"After all, we owe it to our peoples to diminish, if not eradicate the root causes of social instability in our society. We owe it to them to work at those measures that will bring about a just and lasting peace."
SUPER CAPTION: Philippine President Fidel Ramos.

Earlier, in an exclusive interview with APTV, Ramos outlined what he sees as the goals of a much-criticised summit.

Although most summit participants have said eradicating poverty will take decades, the Philippine president suggested the world should commit itself to a time frame.

SOUNDBITE:

"It is very clear that the position we are going to take very strongly in the summit are first in regard to the definite, positive, scheduled alleviation of poverty."
SUPER CAPTION: Philippine President Fidel Ramos.

Since becoming president in 1992, Ramos has often talked about the importance of concentrating on trade not aid.

But as leader of one of Asia's poorest countries and a major aid recipient, he said foreign assistance was still vital.

SOUNDBITE:

"We would also like advanced countries to make good the commitment that was made previously under a U-N agreement to devote at least point seven percent of their national funding resources to social development towards poorer countries."
SUPER CAPTION: Philippine President Fidel Ramos.

The Philippine economy is just beginning to show growth after two decades in the doldrums.

Ramos has said he aims to emulate the economic miracle of "Asian Tigers" like Singapore and Malaysia.

SOUNDBITE:

"I do believe that we can achieve that. (NIC status) When we say NIC we mean 'newly industrialising', not 'industrialised' - that probably will take a few more years. We are aiming for the year 2010 to 2015 to achieve the wholly industrialised status for the Philippines."
SUPER CAPTION: Philippine President Fidel Ramos

Last week, the Philippine Secretary for Economic Planning confirmed President Ramos' assessment of the country's economic progress.

SOUNDBITE:

"Given our newly achieved economic growth rates and economic dynamism in the past couple of years, we seem to be well on track towards that goal. In fact while our initial progress towards that goal was interrupted in 1993 because of a more severe than expected power shortage, we have completely overcome that very quickly and as
a result got back on track on our targets for economic growth."
SUPER CAPTION: Cielito Habito, Secretary for Economic Planning and Development.

Along with other developing countries, the Philippines may benefit from conference commitments like lowering barriers against Third World goods.

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