Fall 1998 Prevention of financial panics was up for discussion at a late-September encounter between leaders of multilateral agencies and of multinational corporations. The meeting, hosted by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), is one of a series of encounters designed to build confidence between the United Nations and the business community. The "Geneva Business Dialogue", although informal in character, takes on additional import in the wake of recent bouts of global financial instability, and the inability of the industrialized countries to intervene decisively.
"We are aiming for an agenda for action over the next few years on the many issues related to the global economy", ICC Secretary General Maria Livanos Cattaui said at an advance press briefing.
The CEO from Siemens AG, the chairmen of Nestle's and of the First Eastern Investment Group, the director of China's National Economic Research Institute, the director of corporate affairs for Microsoft, and executives from Barclays, Du Pont, Hewlett-Packard, Goldman Sachs, Pirelli, Royal Dutch/Shell and Unilever conferred with heads of more than a dozen UN agencies on a range of front-burner global issues. In addition to financial meltdowns, these included globalization pitfalls for emerging economies, multilateral investment liberalization, international extensions of intellectual property rights, the economic impact of refugees and migrants, guidelines for conducting financial transactions over the Internet, cybercrime, and the introduction of the new European Union currency. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan addressed the group via televised hookup. Also joining the discussions were chiefs of the World Trade Organization and of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Corporate leaders at the 23-24 September dialogue attended workshops on the premises of Geneva-based organizations, including -- from the UN system -- the World Meteorological Organization, World Intellectual Property Organization, International Telecommunication Union, World Health Organization, International Labour Organization, and the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). The workshops showcase what Kofi Annan calls the "soft infrastructure" of the global economy -- technical standards and norms set by the UN system that enable aviation, shipping, telecommunications and customs to interface internationally, as well as statistics and trade regulations needed by businesses.
The importance of a "mutually beneficial dialogue" with business is highlighted in the Secretary-General's September report on the work of the United Nations. In the report, he says that "thriving markets and human security go hand in hand" ‹ much the same message he delivered to business leaders at the Davos World Economic Forums in January 1997 and 1998.
The UN's move toward closer relations with business is complemented by a series of initiatives taken by the ICC. In February 1998, 25 corporate chiefs met with the Secretary-General to issue a joint statement on prospects for a UN-private sector partnership. Announced the same day was an UNCTAD-ICC project to produce handbooks on investment opportunities in the world's poorest countries, with the aim of directing capital flows to nations that most need them. Later in the year, the ICC urged leaders of the industrialized world at the Group of 8 summit in Birmingham, United Kingdom, to do more to support the UN, arguing that the Organization requires "sufficient resources and more authority to handle effectively the complex and often interrelated global problems that are emerging as the new millennium approaches".
In an advance commentary in the Journal of Commerce, ICC Secretary General Cattaui writes that a crucial area for consultation is consideration of "the risks inherent in global financial trading and the heightened dangers of contagion when economic and financial crises strike".
Concerns about financial contagion were also voiced at a 17 - 18 September high-level meeting of the UN General Assembly on globalization. Speaking for the developing countries, Indonesian Minister of Foreign Affairs Ali Alatas called for closer regulation of international currency markets and establishment of a new mechanism to oversee international financial flows, just as the World Trade Organization oversees international trade agreements. At a panel of experts from corporations and think tanks, Dr. Fan Gang, director of the Chinese National Economic Research Institute, said that many developing countries are now concerned about "overshooting" on globalization, i.e., opening themselves to cross-border capital flows before financial institutions and government oversight capacities are prepared. Globalization remains the long-term target, he said. But in the short term, developing countries should not be rushing to make their domestic economies compatible with the needs of outside investors. Rather, they need to be thinking about how to make the international sector of their economies more compatible with domestic needs and capabilities.
The Secretary-General of the United Nations told the closing session of the Assembly that developing countries need to be more active in determining international economic policy, and that the UN has an indispensable role to play in crafting a response to globalization.
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