United Nations Radio

The head of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has called for an overhaul of international economic governance in order to ensure lasting stability and prosperity.

Speaking to the EximBank of India, in Mumbai on Thursday, UNCTAD Secretary-General Supachai Panitchpakdi warned of the dangers of continuing "business as usual" and ignoring the lessons that could be learned from the recent financial crisis.

Mr. Panitchpakdi said greater international monitoring and regulation could have averted the crisis, which was caused by over-reliance on market forces.

At the national level, perhaps the greatest lesson, he said, was that trade liberalization and market reform do not automatically lead to sustainable growth for the developing world.

He noted that the most successful countries are those that had ensured an enabling economic role for the State, while encouraging innovative private-sector investment in productive capacities and job creation.

Mr. Panitchpakdi also advocated action at the international level to avert a recurrence of the disastrous effects of the removal of capital controls, the unsupervised proliferation of innovative financial instruments, and the financialization of commodities.

He said while countries should be given more autonomy over their own use of capital controls, a multilateral framework is also needed to manage exchange rates.

Diane Bailey, United Nations
Duration: 1'33"