P.M. looks for sign of reform

Press, 16 May 1984, Page 8

P.M. looks for sign of reform

NZPA staff correspondent London

The Prime Minister, Sir Robert Muldoon, said yesterday he was looking for a sign from next month's London summit meeting that world political leaders had grasped the need for a comprehensive examination of structural difficulties facing the international trade and payments system. He will be looking for a sign that they want to engage in a serious dialogue with developing countries. “If that were forthcoming it would constitute a major challenge to developing countries,” he said. “Too often, developing countries find it comfortable to retreat behind empty and highly politicised rhetoric that is reminiscent of an earlier era in which they were almost entirely dependent on the developed world and resented it accordingly.” That dependency now ran

both ways, Sir Robert told a meeting of the Overseas Development Institute. “My worry is that if we do not start' soon to tackle the underlying structural difficulties to take account of the facts of our interdependent world, we will be forced to do so in much less propitious circumstances," he said.

Sir Robert is having talks today with the British Prime Miniser, Mrs Thatcher, at No. 10 Downing Street.

He met the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Mr Nigel Lawson, at a dinner given yesterday by the New Zealand High' Commissioner. Mr Bill Young, at his Chelsea Square residence. Lord Lever, a former Labour Government Minister who is chairing a Commonwealth committee on debt problems of developing countries, was one of the guests.