Introduction
Inaugural Session
Keynote Presentations
Panel Discussions and Open Forum
Closing Remarks
Media Coverage
Objectives
Participants
1. The Asian financial and economic crisis may have ebbed, but the destruction it has wrought on the economic and social fabric of most East Asian countries will take some years to repair. The speed of restoration will depend on the gravity of the impact, the capacity and resolve of individual countries to reform policies and institutional arrangements that inhibit efficiency (and which, in the first place, helped trigger the crisis) and society’s response to these reforms. The worst is over, but a recurrence of similar crises in the future cannot be discounted.
2. Numerous studies, reports and commentaries have appeared (and reappeared) since the East Asian financial crisis erupted in mid-1997 offering diagnoses on the origins and consequences of the crisis as well as proposals for reform and recovery. There is now something approaching a consensus as to roots of the crisis: a rapid build-up of short-term foreign-currency debt in weak financial systems leading to an appreciation of real exchange rates, a rapid expansion of bank lending (largely to non-tradable sectors such as in real estate) and an increasing vulnerability to reversals in capital flows. The obvious implication is that emerging economies (their banks, especially) should hereon be discouraged from amassing unhedged short-term foreign debt.
3. For certain, growing imbalances and weaknesses at both the microeconomic and macroeconomic levels had been fundamental factors leading to a rapid growth of short-term external debt and the crisis that ensued. But in some countries in the region, political uncertainty and natural calamities helped to aggravate what was essentially a financial crisis and in the process turn it into a full-blown economic debacle. Restoring prudent macroeconomic management, abandoning regulatory measures that discourage efficiency and building credible and transparent governance structures are thus essential not only to restore growth but also to pave the way for sustainable and equitable development. That is the major challenge for the countries in the region, crisis-torn or not.
4. While it is well known that a large majority of the poor in Asian countries are located in rural areas and remain dependent on agriculture for income and employment, the role of agriculture in supporting recovery and sustainable growth in the 21st century has not been given the prominence it deserves. Regaining recently lost ground in poverty alleviation and winning the war against poverty in the next century demand no less than sustainable agricultural progress and dynamic rural development.
5. The FAO Regional Office initiated the establishment of a regional network of national agricultural policy research centres to serve as a catalyst to strengthen policy analysis and facilitate the exchange of information and practical experiences in agricultural and rural development. Its initial focus was to understand the role and contribution of policies, markets and institutions in the dynamic transformation of agriculture in Asia and the Pacific in the 1980s and 1990s. The goal was to draw lessons and regional perspectives from the varied experiences in the region with regard to macroeconomic policy, structural adjustment, institutional reform and external shocks.
6. To continue its policy and programme advisory assistance to Member States, the FAO Regional Office initiated collaborative work on the theme “Asian Crisis, Reform Measures and Agriculture Performance” with a network of leading national agricultural policy institutes and centres in the region. In light of recent developments (i.e. the Asian financial crisis and the El Niño phenomenon), this collaboration focused on updating country assessments and providing cross-country analyses of the effects of macroeconomic reforms and structural adjustment programmes on the rural sector in general and poverty alleviation in particular. The aim was to draw lessons from experiences with macroeconomic and institutional shocks such as the Asian financial crisis. The collaboration also provided a forum for discussing the agricultural and rural development agenda in the next millennium and for refocusing, if necessary, the policy and research agenda of national policy research centres.
7. The activity had two major elements: a) the preparation of country assessment reports on the theme “Asian Crisis, Reform Measures and Agriculture Performance” and b) the holding of two consultative workshops to facilitate an exchange of experiences and draw policy lessons. The first workshop held in January this year in Manila revisited and validated findings and conclusions from earlier policy consultations in light of new evidence and recent development both within and outside the region. Selected policy issues were discussed among leading policy experts and analysts, policy makers and development practitioners. This Ministerial Roundtable and the technical policy workshop are a continuation of this consultation.
8. The Ministerial Roundtable on Beyond the Asian Crisis: Sustainable Agricultural Development and Poverty Alleviation in the Next Millennium brought together high-level government officials, including ministers and vice ministers of agriculture and prominent policy experts, professionals and practitioners from key policy institutes and centers in the region.
9. The Roundtable was held to synthesize views, experiences and advice of various countries and sub-regions in seeking to meet the major concerns and challenges of sustainable agricultural development and poverty alleviation in the next millennium. Launched at the heels of the Asian crisis, the Roundtable was also meant to serve as a forum for an exchange of experiences and perspectives and for identifying lessons that can be of use in the future, given the history and record of economic progress in the region.
10. In attendance during the Ministerial Roundtable were six ministers, three vice ministers, two secretaries/directors-general and other high-level government officials from ten Asian countries; 12 experts from 11 key policy institutes/centres (plus the Association of Southeast Asian Nations or ASEAN) representing 10 countries of the region; and resource speakers from the FAO Regional Office. The list of participants is printed in Annex I.
Welcome Speech
Opening Remarks
11. The participants in the Roundtable were welcomed by Dr. Prem Nath, FAO Assistant Director-General/Regional Representative (ADG/RR). After expressing his gratitude to the participants, he narrated how the Ministerial Roundtable had been conceived as a forum for a mutual exchange of views, perspectives and experiences. The objective, he said, was to merge these insights to identify “best practices” as well as major concerns and challenges of sustainable agricultural development and poverty alleviation in the next millennium.
12. He pointed out that as this century comes to a close, it is very important to take stock of the state of agricultural and rural development in the region, assess the implications of the Asian crisis on agriculture and rural sector and confront head on the challenges facing rural Asia and agriculture in the new millenium.
13. Referring to the FAO Director-General’s Special Programme for Food Security (SPFS), he stated that the SPFS endeavours to demonstrate how low cost irrigation management and the introduction and diversification of (as well as the removal of policy and institutional barriers to) technology can rapidly increase food production.
14. He expressed his conviction that the Ministerial Roundtable should facilitate a greater understanding of the increasing interdependence of economies in the region and be conducive to evolving common approaches to deal with, mitigate and manage, if not altogether prevent, similar economic crises in future. The full text of the speech is shown in Annex II.
15. While referring to the Rome Declaration on World Food Security and World Food Summit Plan of Action adopted at the 1996 World Food Summit, H.E. Pongpol Adireksarn, the Thai Minister for Agriculture and Cooperatives, spoke of the global impacts of the Asian financial crisis, primarily the growing number of people living below the poverty line and the drastically increasing rate of unemployment. It is strongly expected - and widely hoped - that agriculture will be instrumental in solving these problems as food, aside from air and water, is most basic to life.
16. Moreover, he stressed that the region can successfully alleviate poverty through an adoption of sustainable agriculture, which do not create a negative impact on the environment while efficently utilizing limited natural resources. He expressed his confidence that close cooperation among member nations would enhance the development of sustainable agriculture in Asia and around the world and alleviate poverty in the next millennium. His opening remarks are printed in Annex III.
Regional Perspectives
Thailand and Transition Economies in the ASEAN
The ASEAN
China
South Asia
17. Keynote presentations on Prospects and Challenges for Asian Agriculture in the 21st Century are summarized below. Full texts of presentations are given in Annex IV (a-j).
18. Asia, home to over 3.2 billion people, has a rich and diverse history, culture and national heritage, with countries differing not only in aspects such as local tradition, way of government, and religion, but also in population size, natural endowment, economic structure, stage of development, and hence experience and record of economic performance, noted Dr. Prem Nath, FAO ADG/RR, in his opening speech. The region’s progress, he said, has been generally impressive with sustained growth through the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s. Gross domestic product (GDP) grew at over 6 percent annually in parts of Southeast Asia although social and political turbulence in some areas hampered the general improvement in economic well being. For Asia as a whole, real GDP increased at rates well above population growth, which had slowed down, completing the favourable pattern.
19. However, the Asian crisis shook the consciousness, if not the confidence, of many policymakers. Macroeconomic fundamentals betrayed no early symptoms of its coming. Its depth surprised most analysts. Indeed, at some stage, it looked as though the Asian crisis would wipe out the success built up through decades of remarkable economic growth and a strong record in poverty alleviation and human development.
20. Dr. Prem Nath emphasized how agricultural and rural development remained central to any strategy that seeks to alleviate poverty and build food security in the next millennium and how increases in agricultural productivity held the key to sustained rural development. Expansion of cultivable area is no longer considered a practical option as the frontiers had been reached in many countries years ago. Raising agricultural productivity, however, requires sustained investment in support services such as agricultural research and development, improved technology information and extension assistance, farm-to-market roads and related infrastructure, and the construction of small-scale, private sector-led and farmer-controlled irrigation technologies. These will give small farmers a range of technology options and enough flexibility to adjust to market conditions. Investment in rural infrastructure would boost efficiency, reduce the “cost of doing business” in rural areas, and promote diversification of agriculture in the rural economy.
21. H.E. Pongpol Adireksarn, Minister for Agriculture and Cooperatives of Thailand, reported how Thailand, like several other countries in Southeast Asia, had suffered immensely from the impact of the economic crisis that swept the region.
22. He said it was expected that agriculture would assist in the alleviation of the economic crisis because of the important role it plays in society. Farming is an age-old way of life for the majority of Thais, 60 percent of whom live in rural areas. Fourty-two percent of the total land mass is used in cultivation.
23. The agricultural sector is seen as a saviour of the current economic crisis and a guiding light in the new millenium. It is hoped that the sector will help improve the economic situation by focusing on the following issues: generating foreign exchange earnings through expanded exports of agricultural products such as rice, cassava, rubber, broilers, prawns, seafood, fresh and canned vegetables and fruits; accelerating domestic production of agricultural products such as maize, soybean, milk and cotton which serve as import substitutes; maintaining healthy food supply levels to stabilize agricultural prices and minimize inflation; and generating jobs to absorb unemployed workers migrating from big cities to rural areas.
24. He concluded his keynote presentation by stating that agriculture in Thailand would continue to play a vital role in ensuring food security for the country. The agricultural sector, he emphasized, provided solid economic and social foundations needed to surmount the recession.
25. H.E. Maj. Gen. Nyunt Tin, Minister for Agriculture and Irrigation of Myanmar, reported that his home country enjoyed a steady economic growth rate prior to the onset of the Asian financial crisis, with the GDP growth rate averaging at 7.5 percent in the fiscal years 1992 to 1995. Asia’s economic and financial crisis affected Myanmar to a certain extent, he said, especially as contagion effects spread and the crisis deepened, turning into a regional turmoil. Flows of foreign direct investments were reportedly hardest hit by the crisis. It is, however, contemplated that as the Asian economy recovers, investment climates will again turn favourable. In spite of the negative effects of the El Niño phenomenon on local weather, the country managed to grow by 6.4 percent, 5.7 percent and 5.6 percent, respectively, in the first three years of the current five-year plan covering fiscal years 1996 to 2001.
26. He pointed out certain problems faced by Myanmar in the next millennium such as increasing scarcity of arable land, degradation of cultivated land, depletion of forest resources, diminished water supplies, variability in the global trade of agricultural products and mounting pressure against further environmental damage. The only constant progression has reportedly been in the terms of a population explosion.
27. He stressed that under the circumstances, there is a need for strong political will and bold decisions. It will be necessary to discard or alter past strategies that failed to address growth, poverty alleviation and environmental sustainability. For developing countries in Asia, continued agricultural growth on a sustainable basis has become a necessity for the 21st century and not just an option, he emphasized, which now depends squarely on collective efforts.
28. H.E. Ngo The Dan, Vice-Minister, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development of Viet Nam, pointed out that in his country, the agricultural and rural sector played an extremely important role as about 80 percent of the population live in rural areas, with the agriculture and rural economy contributing nearly 40 percent of GDP. Therefore, the Vietnamese Government regularly pays attention to development and considers these as the basis for ensuring political and social stabilization in the course of industrialization and modernization.
29. Although not directly affected by the crisis, Vietnamese also suffered from the regional downturn. The growth rate in national output, which hit 8.5 percent in 1997, fell to 5.8 percent in 1998 while a 4 percent drop in GDP is estimated in the first quarter of this year. The devaluation of several currencies in the region coupled with a dip in demand in crisis-stricken countries has made Vietnamese exports less competitive. Export turnover in the first four months of 1999 decreased by 4 percent compared to the corresponding period a year earlier.
30. To cope with the problems, the Vietnamese Government has implemented several programmes on agricultural and rural development. These include the national programme on food security, which aims to promote food production, ensure food sufficiency even in emergencies such as natural calamities, and assist poor people and enable them to avail of sufficient food when needed; and the national programme on hunger elimination and poverty alleviation, which is mainly designed to assist households in the development of agricultural, forestry and fishery production, promote small industries and encourage resettlement.
31. Mr. Phouvieng Laddavong, Director General, Office of the Minister for Agriculture and Forestry of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, said food security and rural poverty issues have long been a source of deep concern for the Lao Government since more than half of the rural population still lives below the poverty line. This presents a huge challenge to local authorities. Most households lack food security because of disparities in income distribution while malnutrition, which threatens the health of many children under five years old (more than 47 percent estimated), remains one of the biggest problems of the country.
32. The agriculture sector accounts for more than half of GDP (52 percent), employs about 80 percent of the local workforce and accounts for 40 percent of export earnings. About 620,000 families depend on agriculture for their livelihood, of which some 492,000 families rely on subsistence farming. The Lao Government has been developing an integrated plan for agriculture and rural development to cope with the problems of food security and alleviate rural poverty.
33. The recent Asian economic crisis has also affected and reduced economic growth in Lao PDR. The local currency (Kips) has suffered a large depreciation (over 300 percent) since July 1997 and this, in turn, has led to a high rate of inflation. However, the social effects of the crisis have not been as dramatic as in the other afflicted countries (e.g. in terms of unemployment) because of the subsistence nature of most economic activity.
34. He further stated that considering past experiences, the Lao Government is determined to pursue its long term policy development to “free the country from the least developed country status by the year 2020”. The agriculture and forestry sectors will remain the leading economic sector of the country and have been identified as the engines to foster socio-economic development up to year 2020 and to gradually lay down the foundations for a planned shift towards industrialization.
35. Hon. Edgardo Angara, Secretary for Agriculture of the Philippines, said the crisis that struck Asia these past two years is now on the wane. The worst is believed to be over although the effects on Asian societies linger and will continue to influence policies, including those pertaining to agriculture and food security. Beyond the things that nations must do individually, he said Southeast Asia should also work together towards a common vision of ensuring adequate nutrition in the region in the new millennium.
36. He pointed out that several lessons must be kept in mind. First, long-term poverty reduction requires sustained economic growth and hence a macroeconomic and political climate conducive to the resumption of high growth should be put in place in Asia. Second, income growth need not be accompanied by deterioration in income distribution. Third, neither rapid urbanization nor permanent declines in the relative importance of agriculture in national income diminishes the comparative importance of agriculture in poverty alleviation. Finally, he noted it is important to remember that farmers respond to incentives even in poor countries and especially so if given a favourable economic and policy environment.
37. Therefore, the effort to raise agricultural productivity should involve reforming incentives in agriculture as well as the rest of the economy, allowing markets to function efficiently and promoting institutional arrangements conducive to long-term growth and development.
38. He expressed confidence the next century could still be a “Pacific Century” wherein the region could fulfil its potentials. He concluded his presentation by stating that it is the moral imperative of life itself to raise the human condition such that growth and productivity are not the only goals but social justice as well. Bureaucrats, activists, workers and entrepreneurs can all serve as agents of this imperative.
39. H.E. Datuk Amar Dr. Sulaiman Haji Daud, Minister for Agriculture of Malaysia, reported that his country was not spared the regional contagion effects, compelling the Malaysian Government to undertake a series of stringent measures to ensure continued macroeconomic stability. The National Economic Action Council (NEAC) was established on 7 January 1998, and the National Economic Recovery Plan (NERP) prepared and launched less than six months later. Besides addressing immediate economic problems, the NERP also provided a comprehensive framework to address structural and medium-term issues. Through the concerted efforts of both the private and public sectors, Malaysia has successfully contained the crisis and avoided potentially damaging effects such as high unemployment, mass poverty and civil unrest.
40. The crisis period has been extremely challenging for Malaysian agriculture. Aside from having to deal with labour shortages and reduced availability of suitable land for agriculture, the sector also faced temporary problems such as those brought on by the El Niño and La Nina phenomena and the haze. The sector was additionally burdened with higher prices of imported food and inputs following the currency depreciation. As a consequence, stabilizing food prices and tempering inflation have become major challenges.
41. He pointed out that the modernization of the farm sector to enable the country to become a high-value producer and exporter of food and other agro-based products would continue to be the main thrust for agricultural development in Malaysia through the next millennium. In meeting this challenge, agricultural development strategies will continue to be directed at improving productivity and quality and enhancing competitiveness by encouraging greater private sector involvement in large-scale integrated enterprises that house production, processing as well as marketing functions.
42. H.E. Prof. Soleh Solahuddin, Indonesian Minister of Agriculture, narrated how Indonesia had been successful in its development record up to the early part of 1997 despite severe setbacks. Twenty-five years ago, he said, Indonesia numbered among the poorest countries in the world with an annual per capita income of only US$50. Since then, it had made great strides, achieving an average GDP growth of almost 7 percent annually and landing in the ranks of the ten fastest growing economies.
43. Indonesia was the last of the so-called Asian tiger countries to be affected by the global economic crisis that started in 1997. Unfortunately the Indonesian economy has been one of the most deeply affected. The government estimates that the poor increased from 11.3 percent in 1996 to 39.1 percent in 1998 (or around 79.4 million people).
44. Agriculture has always been instrumental in supporting Indonesia’s economic development. The sector’s annual growth rate averaged around 3 percent over a period of 25 years, making it possible to provide relatively cheap food to a population of more than 200 million people and raw materials to support the development of local manufacturing industries.
45. The country’s development policies to overcome the turmoil were set up through a Special Session of People Consultative Council (MPR) held in November 1998 as the economic crisis raised the spirit of reform throughout the country. Proposed reforms cover almost all aspects of public life. In agriculture, it implies a total adjustment and reformulation of policies and strategies to promote agricultural development, with Indonesian agriculture envisioned as an increasingly modern, resilient and efficient sector.
46. H.E. Liu Jian, Vice Minister, Ministry of Agriculture of China, pointed out that the Asian financial crisis impacted negatively on China’s agricultural exports and its utilization of foreign investment. A decline in exports, slower output growth and shrinking consumer demand have all led to weaker markets for farm produce, lower prices and smaller hikes in farmers’ incomes.
47. With credit to open market reforms implemented over the past 20 years, agriculture and rural economy in China has entered into a new development stage. The supply situation of agricultural commodities has changed. As a result, the requirements of food and clothing can now be satisfied and the supply and requirements of major farm produce kept at a balance such that the market may even have surpluses in good years.
48. In this new era, however, China’s agricultural development faces new problems. These include: (a) serious constraints to natural resources and threats to the environment; (b) increasing market control; (c) the backward state of agricultural infrastructure; (d) agricultural technology levels that are inadequate to meet the requirements of agricultural development; and (e) slower growth of farmers’ incomes exacerbating an already discouraging poverty alleviation picture.
49. Now is the critical time for China if it hopes to fully modernize by year 2010. To realize the long-term objective of agricultural development, the Chinese Government says will give top priority to the sector, continue fundamental rural policies, further improve the sector’s capacity and readjust and optimize production systems. The country will do its best to improve the agricultural ecosystem and intensify poverty alleviation efforts to achieve sustainable development.
50. H.E. Mian Abdul Sattar Leleka, Minister for Food, Agriculture and Livestock of Pakistan, said that agriculture was the largest income-generating sector in the country. It contributes 25 percent to GDP, employs 47 percent of the total labour force and supports directly and indirectly nearly 70 percent of the population. The sector also accounts for about 68 percent of export earnings and provides raw material for the Pakistan’s major industries. An efficient harnessing of local agricultural resources is therefore vital.
51. The Pakistan Government has initiated a number of direct support programmes to alleviate poverty. These include the allocation of a poverty alleviation fund; development of social action, rural development and rural support programmes; provision of social safety nets and micro-credit; and establishment of district support organizations.
52. Agriculture policies and programmes of the Pakistan Government are formulated within the framework of the National Agriculture Policy, which is based on the national goals of social equity, self reliance, export orientation, sustainable agriculture and enhanced productivity.
53. Agriculture will continue to be a dominant sector of the economy. The aim is to achieve food self-sufficiency, ensure availability of raw materials for industrial use and enhance earnings through higher exports of agricultural products.
54. Dr. R.S. Paroda, Secretary to the Government of India, Department of Agricultural Research & Education, and Director General of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research of the Ministry of Agriculture, pointed out that the Asian crisis was an eye opener and a warning alarm to countries in the region cautioning them to be prudent in their economic (and particularly, financial) management. From hindsight, India was largely unaffected by the crisis with its financial sector remaining in relatively much better health largely owing to strict monitoring by its central bank. There has been no significant impact of the crisis on exports and imports from the region.
55. By any reckoning, the performance of Indian agriculture since the country became independent in 1947 has been outstanding. However, there are rising concerns about a persistence of malnutrition and poverty and pressures of a growing population in light of degraded and increasingly scarce land and water resources and slow agricultural growth in the current decade. Other negative features include growing inequality, disparities in access to food and other resources within households, and large scale and indiscriminate damage to the environment.
56. The lessons learned, he said, were that famines are not the result of natural disaster or fate, but of poor policies, technological choices and action. He added that people must have the knowledge, skill and resources to grow the food they need or the income to buy it and that agriculture must be the basis for economic development. To protect the natural resource base, agricultural technologies must be developed and disseminated to produce more food on existing agricultural land and must be coupled with enlightened economic and institutional policy.
57. He concluded that to propel Indian agriculture into the 21st century, the quality, technical skills and management of agricultural manpower must improve in consonance with the rapidly changing needs of society.
58. Panel discussions and an open forum followed the keynote presentations. The discussants and their topics were:
59. It was noted that poverty, both a cause and an effect of food insecurity, continued to be a major challenge to the region where the bulk (approximately 75 percent) of the poor in developing countries was located. In Asia, as elsewhere in the developing regions of the world, poverty is mainly a rural phenomenon: nearly three-fourths of the poor live in rural areas, with a large majority depend on agriculture for employment and income. Agricultural growth thus offers a potentially enormous boost to poverty reduction, particularly when the development is broadly based.
60. Participants in the open forum expressed their view that the lingering Asian economic crisis heightened the critical role that agriculture, fisheries and forestry play in economic recovery. More than ever, the sector is called upon to absorb unemployed people forced out of the industrial and services sectors as well as new entrants to the labour force unable to find work in urban areas. It is also relied upon to produce more export crops to raise foreign exchange receipts, increase domestic food supply to ease the pressure on wages and prices, and generate domestic sources of investment.
61. However, the crisis has the potential of obscuring lessons from recent decades of experience in Asia with regard to poverty alleviation and economic development. The crisis has given even supporters of the status quo a reason to question the benefits of economic liberalisation and globalisation (i.e. the opening up of goods, labour, capital and services markets to world trade). Indeed, calls for reversal - or at least, a slowdown - of liberalization efforts have intensified in developed and developing countries alike, especially as the East Asian economies that openly welcomed globalisation were the first to tumble in the wake of the regional crisis.
62. Discussants pointed out that beyond the Asian crisis, developing countries in the region would have to confront enormous development problems and policy challenges. Rising population levels, shrinking agricultural lands, increasing demand on limited water resources from an expanding urban and industrial sector, widespread land degradation, and inadequacy of governance infrastructure appear to be more pressing now than ever before. The urgency is more pronounced for crisis-stricken countries mounting efforts to recover lost ground and deepen their integration with the world economy. As recent experience suggests, these issues cannot be divorced from policy matters impinging on poverty and food security.
63. Participants stressed that it was important to assess recent experiences of developing countries in Asia, their policies as well as select issues pertaining to poverty alleviation and food security. This process showed that achieving food security and success in poverty alleviation not only meant opening up to the world economy, but also laying solid foundations for agricultural growth, rural transformation and social development (e.g. basic education, nutrition, health care, land reform, and infrastructure development). The topic of the Roundtable is thus useful and timely as it not only brings out lessons learned and hence lays down country-specific food security policies but also identifies critical issues and measures that can be best carried out at the regional level through the next millennium.
64. Adverse effects of unsustainable agricultural practices and widespread poverty, meanwhile, do not remain confined to the countries where they occur. They spill over boundaries to other countries in the region in various forms such as downstream environmental problems and hazards, cross-border movements of labour (particularly the unemployed) and potentially weaker demand for goods and services produced in relatively prosperous more countries by poorer trading partners. The forum thus recommended that in addition to country-specific actions to combat these problems, regional cooperation and the forming of coalitions to address shared concerns are beneficial.
65. Dr. Prem Nath, ADG/RR, pointed out that the strong participation and the high quality of keynote presentations by government representatives testified to the importance attached to the issue of sustainable agricultural development and poverty alleviation in the next millennium. The country presentations and panel discussions successfully brought out both the commonality and diversity of the issues, concerns and views. One thing that clearly stood out, however, was that sustainable agriculture and rural development will remain crucial issues in the region in the foreseeable future.
66. The sharing of country experiences and perspectives on the theme provided an opportunity for the countries represented to appreciate each other’s problems and analyse and consider diverse approaches to various issues.
67. The meeting announcement was released by Reuters and by The Nation (Thai newspaper) on 14 June.
68. Twelve correspondents attended the inaugural session on 14 June 1999 comprising five from Thai media, three from regional outlets and four from wire services (AP, Reuters, DPA and Xinhua).
69. The first story was released by the Associated Press. It tackled the main messages from the ADG/RR keynote presentation, supplemented by statements from Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia and China.
70. The AP release was reproduced by a large number of national and regional media outfits and triggered requests for interviews with the ADG/RR from BBC World Service, London and CNN, Hong Kong. The BBC interview was held over the phone on Monday evening 14 June 1999.
71. Radio Thailand External Service broadcast a report on the Roundtable starting 14 June 1999 in the evening news which was repeated until 15 June also in the evening. This report was based mainly on the statement made by the Thai Minister. A second report was broadcast starting with the morning news on 16 June based on RAP press releases.
72. Television interviews with the ADG/RR and the Thai Minister were recorded on 14 June 1999. That same day, Thai television channels 5 and 7 broadcast during their evening news a report on the meeting that included an interview with the Thai Minister.
