Seminar on UNCTAD integrated programme for primary commodities held on wednesday 19 November 1975, at Holiday Inn, Kuala Lumpur

Abstract

Based on the UNCTAD working papers pertaining to the proposed integrated programme for primary commodities, the Seminar was structured around four sessions covering the following main themes: A. An Integrated Programme for Commodities B. 1. Role of International Commodity Stocks 2. A Commodity Fund for the Financing of Commodity Stocks C. 1. Compensatory Financing 2. Indexation This Seminar Report reflects the main points generated during the Seminar as a whole, rather than the sessional discussions proper as, perforce, all the seminar themes were directly inter-related. The new consciousness among the developing countries pertaining to an integrated programme for their primary exports was traced to an interplay of the following, viz: 1. the developing countries need reasonably priced imports from the industrialized countries in order to facilitate their development programmes; 2. there is apparently a secular decline in the terms-of-trade of primary exports to goods imported from the developed nations; and 3. the need to stabilize the foreign exchange earnings of developing nations becomes acute when the national financing of their development programme is taken into consideration.