Managing Director’s speech to UNCTAD

• Author: Positive dynamics in recent history. -Poverty. -Reinvigorated multilateralism.
• Pages: 50-53

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Following are edited excerpts from IMF Managing Director Michel Camdessus’s address to the Tenth United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in Bangkok on February 13. This was Camdessus’s last speech as IMF Managing Director. The full text is available on the IMF’s website (www.imf.org).

Let me reflect with you on the paradox of the present situation: promise—unprecedented prospects in certain fields—but financial instability and “exclusion,” the so-cruel situation of the poorest, and the anxieties of so many in the world. One must recognize that there are serious reasons for this anxiety, even if the world has recently overcome, with unprecedented speed, the most severe crisis of the last 50 years, and even if the world today enjoys better prospects for sustainable growth, with global output slightly over 3 percent for advanced countries and about 5 percent for developing countries.

Positive dynamics in recent history

Let me mention three positive dynamics:

• A major economic crisis is being overcome, and we can build a more stable world on its lessons.

• A new paradigm of development is emerging.

• We recognize better now that globalization, if properly handled, can become a major opportunity for the progress of the world.

First, meeting here in Asia, we can only note the resilience demonstrated by Asian economies to this most severe crisis, the courage demonstrated by the authorities in facing adversity, and the capacity of the international community to respond promptly to such a shock with the technical and financial assistance needed.

These recoveries are outstanding experiences on which to build, but it is remarkable to observe also that they rest on, or have developed in parallel with, positive developments in the way the international community approaches its economic challenges. A new paradigm of development is progressively emerging here. Let me emphasize two of its key features.

First, a progressive humanization of basic economic concepts. It is recognized that the market can have major failures, that growth alone is not enough or can even be destructive of the natural environment or precious social goods and cultural values. Only the pursuit of high-quality growth is worth the effort.

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Second, at a deeper level, we observe also in recent approaches a striking and promising recognition of the convergence between a respect for fundamental ethical values and the search for efficiency required by market competition. This augurs well for attaining the highest-quality growth we now seek.

At the same time, a new perception of globalization is emerging. Globalization can now be seen in a positive...