Saturday, April 23 2005 13:50 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Jakarta: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today (Apr 23, 2005) said the countries of Asia and Africa must strive to phase out trade-distorting agricultural subsidies in developed countries and remove barriers to agricultural exports, while protecting the livelihood security of millions of farmers in these continents.

"We need a lowering of tariff and non-tariff barriers to our other exports," Singh told leaders from over 100 countries gathered here for the historic Asian African Conference.

The Prime Minister expressed concern over the rigid visa restrictions, which continued to obstruct the free movement of people and services, depriving the people of Asia and Africa of full benefit from their main economic strength.

"We need greater protection for our bio-diversity resources and fair recompense for their exploitation by others," he told the audience.

He said the international concern for the protection of the environment was fully appreciated by the countries of the two continents. "However, this goal needs to be balanced with the development aspirations of the developing nations," he noted.

"We need assured access to environment-friendly technologies and the resources to induct them into our countries."

Singh called for urgent measures to generate additional financial resources for development, especially for the least developed countries and the Highly indebted poor countries.

The Prime Minister emphasised that new structures must be created of mutual support, solidarity and cooperation to benefit from the best practices and appropriate technologies among the people of Asia and Africa.

"This is required as urgently today as it was fifty years ago," he noted.

Singh outlined specific areas where such cooperation was vital including agriculture, technology, combating terrorism and bringing out democratisation of the United Nations.

''We must ensure that access to both new and appropriate technologies, and to cutting edge areas of science are expanded greatly. Advances in biotechnology can promote revolutionary changes in agriculture and health,'' he said.

He noted that while Asia and Africa included both major producers and consumers of energy, the framework within which the two continents produced and consumed energy was determined elsewhere.

"We must address this anomaly," he stressed adding that new and renewable sources of energy could provide a more secure energy environment.

Singh urged that imaginative strategies of human resource development based on information and communication technology could accelerate the pace of social and economic development. "Afro-Asian nations can benefit from cooperative management of research and development in all these areas."

The Prime Minister declared that to achieve these goals, "our strategic partnership must be inspired by a common vision of globalisation based on maximising cooperative self reliance."

The People of Asia and Africa must ensure that in the transition from dependence to interdependence, there must be greater cohesion between the nations of the two continents.

He regretted that South-South linkages had weakened when they were most required.

"India sees South-South cooperation as an effective cooperative approach to the challenges of development. We are committed to this objective," he said.