UK assertion on the UNCTAD Convention, October 2025

Ministers, Excellencies, Distinguished Delegates,

The United Kingdom is honoured to affix you on the UN’s sixteenth convention on commerce and growth.

It couldn’t come at a extra well timed juncture.

Throughout this week, we’ve heard first hand from creating nation ministers concerning the more and more advanced and interconnected challenges their international locations face:

• Conflicts and their spillovers, together with Russia’s unlawful invasion of Ukraine,
• Debt servicing prices,
• Current and future impacts of local weather change, and
• The present financial uncertainty.

These all demand our consideration. They additionally demand renewed multilateralism.

A multilateral buying and selling system with a reformed WTO at its core is essential to our shared ambitions for prosperity. The significance of the WTO and its capability to supply commerce stability for all its Members can’t be overstated – however we are going to all want to interact in crucial reforms for this to be an ongoing actuality.

We are below no illusions concerning the challenges and the difficulties that Members are dealing with at current. But UNCTAD and the WTO working alongside one another could be a cornerstone of worldwide development and growth.

It is our agency perception that commerce creates jobs, stimulates funding, and attracts know-how. No nation has lifted itself out of poverty with out rising its commerce with the world.

And it is for that reason that the UK has lengthy championed free, honest and inclusive commerce, and have supported creating international locations to harness the ability of commerce on the WTO and past.

Our Developing Countries Trading Scheme not solely cuts tariffs however provides probably the most beneficiant guidelines of origin of any preferential buying and selling scheme. This is our unilateral supply. No ties. Nothing requested in return.

We are grateful for UNCTAD’s experience which fed into the design of guidelines of origin within the Developing Country Trading Scheme, together with our newest modifications introduced within the UK Trade Strategy in June.

These modifications assist intra-regional commerce in Asia and Africa and be certain that LDCs profit from zeroed tariffs on attire after they graduate.

We equally recognise that if we’re going to realise the large growth alternatives, notably in Africa, it requires unlocking transformational funding – a basic pillar in our strategy to growth.

Through our new Growth and Investment Partnerships we are going to mobilise private and non-private finance to co-invest in growth utilizing UK-backed devices like British International Investment – often known as BII.

And it’s a part of our UK dedication to construct on what was delivered at FFD4.

Financing for growth and commerce should go hand in hand to unlock inclusive development and resilience. The UK will proceed to advocate for funding as a driver of sustainable growth, alongside gender equality and climate-smart commerce insurance policies.

Which brings us to UNCTAD.

This week has highlighted the worth of this organisation, which brings us collectively to diagnose challenges and prescribe options.

We have seen all week the worth that creating international locations see in UNCTAD’s work.

The organisation provides not only a very important voice on commerce, but additionally on funding, debt, productive capacities, and know-how.

Indeed, for the UK too – we see actual worth in UNCTAD’s rigorous analytical work, the technical assist it provides and the platform it offers to debate these points which are most crucial to the creating world. 

But within the face of the challenges outlined earlier, we should even be open and artistic in specializing in what works – and the way we work collectively higher.

We commend the management of Rebeca Grynspan, who has pushed significant enhancements in transparency, affect, and responsiveness—making certain the organisation’s work stays related and transformative in at present’s quickly evolving financial panorama.

But to paraphrase what UNCTAD Secretary General mentioned on Monday: To be a multilateralist should additionally imply being a reformer.

And as Members we should go additional. We should set up clearer buildings, we should empower the voices of specialists, and we should give UNCTAD the flexibleness to adapt to probably the most urgent points.

Key to that is aligning UNCTAD with the ideas of UN80 and to work higher inside the system.

For us this implies coordinating and specialising, not duplicating and competing.

Both UNCTAD and the broader system have to evolve to have the ability to assist creating international locations to deal with the challenges they face – and assist the very important function that commerce can play.

The UK seems ahead to the remainder of the convention and delivering on its negotiated final result doc over the subsequent 4 years.