Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
At first, on
behalf of the Chinese Delegation, I would like to extend
mysincere congratulations on your election as the chairman
of the meeting. Iam confident that, under the talented
steering of you and the other membersof the bureau, and with
the collective cooperation of all delegations, this meeting
will secure a complete success.
Mr. Chairman,
In the last year, the drug control cooperation among
the countries acrossthe world was further strengthened, and
the international drug controlcause continued to make
obvious achievements. However, the current drugsituation
remains not optimistic. The harms of traditional drugs such
asheroin and opium are still serious, and the new types of
drugs andsynthetic drugs such as amphetamine-type stimulants
(ATS) become rampant.Drug crimes get closely interweaved
with money laundering and othertransnational organized
crimes. HIV/AIDS infection related to drug abusebecomes
increasingly worse. Developing countries continue to be in
want offinancial resources of drug control.
Mr. Chairman,
The Chinese Government
has identified the goal of building a well-offsociety
in an all round way. As an important component to
achieve thisgoal, in the year of 2003, the Chinese
Government continued to persist inits firm stand of complete
drug control, implemented comprehensive andbalanced national
drug control strategy, mobilized all departments of
theGovernment and all sectors of the society to participate
in drug controland resulted in notable fruits.
In the last year, against the goals and
objectives set in the 1998 United Nations General Assembly
Special Session (UNGASS), the Chinese Governmentcontinued to
perfect its drug control laws and regulations, and
developedeffective national drug control strategy according
to the characteristicsof domestic drug situation, actively
conducted international cooperation,and made obvious
achievements in the fields of drug law enforcement,
demandreduction and alternative development. In 2003,
Chinese drug controlagencies cleared 93,800 drug cases,
seized 9.53 tons of heroin, 5.83 tonsof
methamphetamine, 409,000 tablets of ecstasy,
72.8 tons of precursorchemicals, and, through international
check, stopped 3490 tons of precursorchemicals from illicit
export.
The Chinese Government considered
fighting money laundering as an importantaspect to combat
drug crimes, and adopted active measures to prevent andcrack
down upon it. China has fixed money laundering as a criminal
offencein the Criminal Code of China. The Central Bank of
China and the Ministryof Public Security has established
Anti-Money Laundering unitsrespectively. The Central Bank of
China and the State Foreign ExchangeAdministration have
issued relevant anti-money laundering regulations suchas the
Regulation Methods of Bank Accounts, and implemented real
namesystem in deposit. Three anti-money laundering
regulations such asAnti-Money Laundering Regulation of
Financial Institutions came into forcein March 2003. In
2004, the State Foreign Exchange Administration
willestablish an electronic information system to collect
information onsuspected big-sum and suspected deal of
foreign exchange business.
The Chinese
Government attached high importance to law
enforcementcooperation and mutual legal assistance and
considered it as thefundamental way to tackle transnational
drug crimes. Up to March 2003, theChinese Government has
signed 60 mutual legal assistance protocols,extradition
agreements or the protocols on the transfer of tried
criminalswith 40 countries. Within the framework of
bilateral drug control MOUs andthe sub-regional drug law
enforcement project of Cross Border DrugEnforcement
Cooperation in East Asia (D91) developed by UNDCP,
Chinaconducted effective legal assistance and suspects
transferring withneighboring countries such as Myanmar,
Laos, Thailand, Vietnam andCambodia. From January to October
2003, China had conducted 39 joint drug enforcement
activities in the border areas with Myanmar and Laos in
which Myanmar transferred 19 drug suspects to China. On May
16 2003, the law enforcement agencies of China, U. S., India
and Hong Kong SAR jointly dismantled the 125
transnational drug trafficking case, in which 28 suspects
were arrested and 40.2 kilograms of heroin were seized. In
February 2004, the drug control agencies of China and
Philippines jointly cleared the 9.2
transnational drug trafficking case and seized 296 kilograms
of methamphetamine in Manila.
The Chinese
Government deems demand reduction as an important measure to
compress illicit drug consumption market and promote the
health and development of people, adopted a number of
intervention measures and achieved positive results. Up to
2003, the number of the registered drug users in China had
added up to 1.05 million. In order to treat the drug
addicts, the relevant agencies persisted in the method of
combining pharmaceutical and psychological treatment with
the education of law and morality, and at the same time
provided HIV/AIDS prevention education. Based on statistics,
in 2003, China had altogether 591 compulsory drug treatment
centers where 222,000 persons received treatment in the
year. Up to 2003, the number of HIV/AIDS positives had
accumulated to more than 80,000, of which about 55.3 got
transmitted through injecting drug use. To address this
problem, the ministries of health, public security and drug
administration started to implement community-based drug
substitution therapy in some piloting sites.
The Chinese Government fulfilled actively the
principle of shared responsibility and attached high
importance to reduce illicit drug supply from the drug
sources, and helped conduct effective alternative
development activities in the northern areas of Myanmar and
Laos, and has funded more than 500 million yuan (60 million
USD) since the early 1990s. In 2003, China has organized
relevant Chinese enterprises to launch the biggest crop
substitution cooperation project in northern Laos, in which
the enterprises will fund about 1 million USD to plant more
than 100,000 mu (more than 6000 ha.) of rubber trees. To
solve the market of the alternative products, the Chinese
Government issued favorable policy in the year 2000 and
exempted more than 20 million yuan (about 2.4 million USD)
of import tax from AD products each year. In 2004, the
Chinese Government plans to further promote its alternative
development cooperation with foreign countries.
In order to further promote the drug control
legislation, the Chinese Government is now drafting the
first Drug Control Law of China, which is expected to guide
the drug control practice in all relevant fields and
safeguard the healthy and orderly development of drug
control.
Mr. Chairman,
A saying in
China reads, to searching for the truth and to take
practical measures. Through years of unremittingly
efforts by international drug control organizations and the
governments of all countries, the world drug control
situation has been improved to certain extent. However, it
should be soberly noted that, due to financial, technical
and other reasons, the drug control work of relevant
countries and the efforts of the international community to
coordinate global drug control work are seriously hindered.
We hereby call upon the international organizations and the
governments of all countries to realize the enormous harms
posed by illicit drugs to the world peace in the
fundamental, complete and scientific way, further adopt
active and practical attitude toward it, enhance the
coordination level between countries, strengthened their
efforts to fight against the production of, traffic in and
abuse of synthetic drugs, reduce the HIV/AIDS vulnerability
and other negative effects induced by drug abuse, and stop
precursor chemicals from diversion; and the international
community and developed countries should implement their
relevant commitment, shoulder their due responsibility, and
provide more financial, technical and training support for
drug source and transit countries.
Mr.
Chairman,
Last year, the Commission on Narcotics
Drugs held its first ministerial session since the 1998
UNGASS, and proposed the programme of the second phase for
the international community to realize the drug control
goals of 2008. In 2004, which is the beginning year of the
second phase, the Chinese Government will continue to
greatly support the work of United Nations Office on drugs
and Crime (UNODC) and International Narcotics Control Board
(INCB), further strengthen the cooperation with all
countries in the world, and make its contribution for
clearing illicit drugs and establishing a drug free world.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
