Mr. Chairman,
I have the honour to speak on behalf of the five Nordic countries: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden.
We welcome the report of the work of its thirty-eighth session, and we would like to thank the Commission and the secretariat for their excellent work.
As we have said several times, the Nordic countries recognise the work of UNCITRAL as productive and highly successful in developing international trade law. International cooperation in this field is central to achieve effective trade, which is essential for economic development.
Yet another important step in the development of international trade law has been taken by the Commission a couple of months ago with the adoption of the new Convention on the use of electronic communications in international contracts. This Convention provides, among other things, a common solution to remove obstacles to the use of electronic communications in a manner acceptable to States with different legal, social and economic systems.
The Commission is also making progress in other Working Groups and we are confident that the Commission will be able to carry out its ambitious plans for further development of international legal instruments in the field. Just to mention one example during this year’s session a tremendous work has been done in the Working Group dealing with transport (Working Group III). In our view the Working Group is approaching the right balance when designing this new instrument on issues relating to the international carriage of goods by sea.
The Nordic countries attach great importance to the work of UNCITRAL. Sweden, as a member of the Commission, and with the support of the other Nordic countries looks forward to continue to contribute to the further development of international trade law in order to ensure economic development.
Thank you.