India is expected to announce additional financial contributions for the development of Least Developed Countries (LDCs) later this week when it hosts a ministerial conference here in which about 35 foreign ministers from these nations will participate.
"Of the total 48 Least Developed Countries (LDCs), we will be hosting 35 ministers and also about 45 permanent representatives in New York for the India-LDC Ministerial Conference on February 18-19," India's permanent representative to the UN Hardeep Puri told reporters here.
Asked if India would announce additional concessions to LDcs, Puri said "my expectation is yes. I think it will be only appropriate that we allow the announcement of those additional...Contributions to be made at appropriate political level."
He said it would be only logical to make such announcements as there will expectation from the countries participating in the conference 'Harnessing the positive contribution of South-South Cooperation for development of the Least Developed Countries (LDCs)'.
Apart from LDCs, Finland, Australia, Slovenia, China, Hungary, Croatia, Georgia, European Union, the US, Germany and Hungary will also attend the meeting as observers, he said.
The objective of the Conference is to provide inputs to the 4th UN-LDC Conference to be held in Istanbul in May this year, which is expecting an ambitious outcome, one which would allow at least 50% of the countries to reach the threshold of graduation by 2020.