The international business community is urging governments to support the effectiveness, authority and resource base of the United Nations, while the world body continues its streamlining institutional reform, in a statement presented today to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

The President of the International Chamber of Commerce, Adnan Kassar, handed to the Secretary-General a world business message for the Millennium Assembly on the role of the United Nations in the twenty-first century. It was delivered on behalf of the International Chamber of Commerce worldwide membership of over 7,000 business associations and companies, located in more than 130 countries and territories.

The Millennium Assembly begins 5 September 2000 in New York, with a summit of heads of State and government to start the following day. This special session of the United Nations General Assembly is to chart goals and directions for the United Nations and the international community at the opening of a new century and millennium.

The International Chamber of Commerce message urged the upcoming Millennium Assembly to ensure that the United Nations takes the lead in supporting a rules-based open system of international trade and investment while opposing all forms of protectionism. Relevant United Nations agencies and programmes, and not the multilateral trading system, should be the recognized global institutions for raising environmental and labour standards and promoting human rights, the message states.

These are the core values cited by Secretary-General Kofi Annan in his initiative for a Global Compact between the United Nations, business and civil society.

"We welcome the Global Compact that the Secretary-General proposed almost exactly one year ago for cooperation between business and the United Nations in raising environmental and labour standards and promoting human rights", Mr. Kassar said at a press briefing following his meeting with the Secretary-General.

The International Chamber of Commerce statement said that history has shown that improvements in human rights and in labour and environmental standards are more readily attainable in conditions of rising prosperity, Produced by the interaction of the market economy and good governance. "Strong commitment to open markets and the effective treatment of these issues are mutually reinforcing and should go hand in hand."

The decision to submit a business statement in advance of the Millennium Assembly next September was taken at a meeting in Geneva in July between Secretary-General Annan, the heads of United Nations agencies and the International Chamber of Commerce. Top executives from 27 leading international companies from both developed and developing countries also took part.

The message states that the United Nations should give special attention to capacity-building in least developed countries, particularly in human resources, physical infrastructure and institutional reform. This would assist these countries to raise and attract investment and to link themselves to the global information society.

For more information, contact Tim Wall (telephone 1-212-963-5851) or Dan Shepard (1-212-963-2339) at the Development and Human Rights Section of the United Nations Department of Public Information; and Georg Kell (1-212-963-1490) at the Executive Office of the Secretary-General.