LID, MALAYSIA'S EFFORT IN FURTHERING THE MILLENIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS

KUALA LUMPUR, May 12 (Bernama) -- The Langkawi International Dialogue (LID) is one of Malaysia's effort in fostering closer relations with the least developed countries (LDCs) and to further the Millenium Development Goals aimed at tackling extreme poverty.

Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Nor Mohamed Yakcop said the international dialogue on global partnership would further strengthen Malaysia's effort to forge closer economic and trade ties with the LDCs.

Malaysia, which also offered preferential treatment to the LDCs, believed development assistance should be specifically tailored to address their specific needs and challenges, he said.

"Malaysia is cognisant that there are no silver bullets or, panacea, that applies for all countries, especially when addressing the diverse challenges faced by the LDCs that are undergoing different development phase" he said at the Fourth United Nations Conference for LDCs in Turkey, recently.

Countries that are ready to move towards graduation should be assisted in sustaining the level of growth towards higher Gross National Income per capita with continous support from the development partners and international community, said Nor Mohamed, who's speech text was made available to Bernama Thursday.

Among others, he said Asia's key development feature of being able to forge strong public-private sector partnership can offer pragmatic paradigm shift for the LDCs, particularly in the area of best practices.

"The more developed among us have the advantage in terms of technology, capital markets, trained workforce, experience and efficiency in organisation.

"Hence, the more developed countries should opt for a "win-win"
solution in assisting LDCs to maximise the potential of their resources towards enabling them to further traverse up the value chain and achieve higher productivity," he added.
-- BERNAMA