Chinese envoy urges biggest contributor to fulfill UN financial duties

UNITED NATIONS, May 3 (Xinhua) -- China's deputy permanent representative to the United Nations on Tuesday urged the organization's biggest contributor to fulfill its financial duties.

"The largest contributor has not well-fulfilled its financial obligations to the UN over the years. This is unfair to other countries," Dai Bing told the second part of the resumed session of the Fifth Committee of the 76th session of the UN General Assembly, which deals with internal UN administrative and budgetary matters.

"Reform initiatives aimed at improving the financial situation of the UN should be strictly in line with the spirit of the UN Charter, adhere to the member states-driven principle, strengthen financial discipline, and improve comprehensive budgetary performance," said the envoy.

Dai urged the Secretariat to strengthen the comprehensive budgetary performance, improve internal control and rigorously enforce financial discipline, so as to "make sure that every penny from member states is well-spent, and enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of peacekeeping operations."

Talking about the UN's financial situation, the ambassador said "there will never be a real solution to the liquidity difficulty as long as the root cause remains unresolved."

"Any potential solution should not lead to additional financial burden for member states, especially developing countries," he said.

As the largest developing country, China has its own challenges, such as combating the pandemic, developing its economic economy and improving people's livelihood, Dai said. "However, we have still managed to actively fulfill our financial obligations, and recently contributed more than 200 million U.S. dollars to the UN."

"We call upon all member states, especially those with the paying capacity, to pay their assessed contributions as well as the outstanding arrears in full and on time, in order to support the UN in playing its central role in global governance," said the ambassador.