Secretary General of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Supachai Panitchpakdi has called on developing countries to take advantage of South-South cooperation to enhance their economic strength.

The UNCTAD Secretary General delivered the necessary requirements at a meeting on international cooperation focused on “South-South Cooperation and Regional Integration” held in Geneva, Switzerland, on February 23.

During the meeting, experts from UNCTAD warned that although developing economies have recorded impressive growth rates compared with developed ones in recent decades, they still have to face a wide range of challenges to ensure sustainable growth in productivity, the quality of jobs and workers incomes.

Both economists and policy makers in developing countries agreed that economic growth in southern developing nations needs the support of a more active policy to boost economic strength and equality in the distribution of emerging benefits.

Challenges facing the South-South partnership include how to develop prosper polices to ensure achievable goals while maintaining the level of competition achieved in the recent past.

The real challenge was how to use the effectiveness of trade, investment and transferred technologies to boost productivity, job quality and workers earnings without affecting the balance of payments and undermining the economy, they said./.