Industrial Development Board, twenty-ninth session

Statement to IDB 29 by H.E. Miomir Zuzul, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Croatia

The first of the high-level delegates to make a statement to IDB 29 was Croatia's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Miomir Zuzul. The Minister said that he was attending the meeting in response to the Director-General's invitation and as a follow-up to the visit by Mr. Magarinos to Zagreb earlier in the year, (see UNIDOScope 25 April - 1 May 2004) when an agreement had been signed on a project for the development of corporate responsibility.

Given its location in a region which had experienced the destructive consequences of war, Croatia welcomed UNIDO's activities in countries emerging from crisis situations and the strategy paper on post-crisis industrial rehabilitation and reconstruction. It was to be hoped that the strategy paper on those activities would serve as a basis for future work and offer a real opportunity not only for UNIDO but also for the entire United Nations system to find efficient ways of dealing with such situations. With regard to the decentralization process, Croatia welcomed the Cooperation Agreement between UNDP and UNIDO recently signed in New York. That Agreement would allow the two organizations to cooperate and support private sector development in developing countries and countries with transition economies.