President arrives for G11 Summit in Jordan  
[Friday, May 18, 2007 - 7.30 GMT] 

President Mahinda Rajapaksa arrived in Jordan last night to participate in the G11 Summit and the World Economic Forum.

He was met at the Queen Aliya airport by the Jordanian Minister for Public Works and Housing Hosni Abu Gheida, and welcomed with State Honours.

President Rajapaksa is due to address the World Economic Forum (WEF) for the Middle East today. The WEF is a non-political organization comprising varied
economic and business organizations, seeking economic and social development. It will address the issue of achieving technological development at international, regional and zonal levels.

G11 Group

The G11 Group was launched last year at the time of the UN General Assembly sessions in New York. Its members are Jordan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Indonesia (Middle East and Asia), Morocco and Tunisia (Africa), Georgia and Croatia (Europe) and Honduras, Paraguay and Ecuador (Central and South America). Jordan is the current Secretary General of the G11.

The objective of the G11 Group is to increase cooperation and knowledge sharing among participants who are from the lower-Middle Income countries.

Member countries of the G11 Group have achieved significant results in their economic reform and restructuring policies, resulting in enhancement of
their economies. The Summit will look at means of capitalizing on these results with support from industrialized states.

The G11 Summit will consider policies to encourage active economic participation to improve the economies of the member states by making foreign aid responsive to local needs, shifting from loans to grants to keep
countries from re-accumulating debt, lobby wealthy countries to open their markets to developing country products - especially in the agricultural sector, channel savings from debt into strengthening education and public health, knowledge sharing, and adopting common strategies to make foreign aid responsive to local needs.

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Last Updated Date: May 18, 2007 -7.30 GMT