Abu Dhabi–Ex­ec­u­tive Sec­re­tary of the Eco­nom­ic Com­mis­sion for Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean (Eclac) Ali­cia B�rce­na, says the re­gion needs "more in­clu­sion and more well-be­ing," giv­en the high lev­el of in­equal­i­ty and the lack of pub­lic goods af­fect­ing many cit­i­zens.On Tues­day, the se­nior UN of­fi­cial took part in a ple­nary ses­sion en­ti­tled Re­gion­al Per­spec­tives on Glob­al Trends, in the frame­work of the Sec­ond Glob­al Meet­ing of Re­gion­al Or­gan­i­sa­tions in Abu Dhabi.

The meet­ing, joint­ly or­gan­ised by the World Eco­nom­ic Fo­rum and the Gov­ern­ment of the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates, took place from No­vem­ber 18 to 20 and was at­tend­ed by rep­re­sen­ta­tives from around 20 or­gan­i­sa­tions.

The ple­nary ses­sion, mod­er­at­ed by Klaus Schwab, founder and Ex­ec­u­tive Chair­man of the World Eco­nom­ic Fo­rum, fea­tured con­tri­bu­tions by the Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al of the Union for the Mediter­ranean, Fathal­lah Si­jil­mas­si; Swe­den's Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs, Carl Bildt; for­mer Aus­tralian Prime Min­is­ter Kevin Rudd; for­mer Japan­ese Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs and Min­is­ter for the En­vi­ron­ment, Yoriko Kawaguchi; and Chair­man of the Eurasian De­vel­op­ment Bank, Ig­or Finogen­ov.

B�rce­na said: "We are the most un­equal re­gion in the world. Not the poor­est, but the most un­equal," while stat­ing that Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean is rich in nat­ur­al re­sources but has lim­it­ed gov­er­nance over them in terms of own­er­ship and dis­tri­b­u­tion.She ex­plained that the emerg­ing mid­dle class­es have greater ac­cess to pri­vate con­sump­tion of house­hold goods, but the pub­lic ser­vices, goods and spaces that should be pro­vid­ed by the State lack the ap­pro­pri­ate qual­i­ty or in­fra­struc­ture.

B�rce­na added: "Chi­na is mov­ing its foun­da­tions to­wards in­vest­ment. We are still con­tin­u­ing down the road of con­sump­tion, but we should al­so move to­wards in­vest­ment."She ex­plained that the prob­lem is that Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean has high­er im­ports than ex­ports, and some coun­tries do not have enough sav­ings to in­vest more.

B�rce­na al­so point­ed out that Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean re­mains very frag­ment­ed, cit­ing as an ex­am­ple the low per­cent­age of in­trare­gion­al trade that she said makes up just 19 per cent of the to­tal, where­as in Asia the fig­ure is al­most 40 per cent and in Eu­rope two thirds.

AP