Colombo Plan Conference

New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 900, 2 November 1956, Page 11

Colombo Plan Conference

URING November and early December over a huridred overseas visitors will be attending the 8th Colombo Plan Conference in Parliament Buildings, Wellington. Each one of the 21 Delegaions will be led by a Cabinet Minister, and will comprise economic experts, treasury officials, and experts in other fields important to the Plan. The Conference itself is in three stages, the first two of which will prepare the ground for the top level meeting of the Ministerial Consultative Committee from December 4 to 8. Delegates will meet in the old Legislative Council Chamber, where a large map of the Asian world will show symbolically some of the resuits of the plan-a hydro-electric dam in India, for instance, a factory in Indonesia, and a school in Cambodia. The Conference will give New Zealanders an opportunity to gain first-hand impressions of life in Asia, and to learn how the Plan is working out in reality. The NZBS will be covering the conference itself, and at the same time trying to give listeners as vivid a picture as possible of the Asian world. J. H. Hall, Supervisor of Talks, outlined the plans of his Department as follows: "Our coverage of the Colombo Plan Conference falls into two parts. While the second stage of the conference is on from November 19-30, listeners can hear a nightly documentary programme of about fifteen minutes’ duration called Inside the Colombo Plan. These will be built up from interviews with delegates and will be in ten instalments. We will try to show what has been done, what more can be done, and will discuss such questions as whether the delegates, consider they are getting full value from the money allocated to them. We will be bringing the voices of the Asian delegates into it, and I hope they will speak freely. At the moment, however, that is something of a gamble. "When the Consultative Committee meets from December 4-8, another seties, The Colombo Plan Conference, will attempt to follow the progress of the meetings. Although these are to be held in camera, we can surmount this by asking the delegates to comment on the decisions taken. When the Conference is over the visitors will be touring each Island, and I would like people who will be meeting and talking with them to be able to do so on an informed OO a a eee _______nr

footing. The Colombo Plan Conference programmes will be heard each night including Saturday, December 8. On this night and on the succeeding Saturday, December 15, Lookout will move from Saturday night to Sunday night." The languages of the Conference will be French and English, and various translation services are being installed for delegates by the technical division of the Service. In commenting on New Zealand’s role as host country, an official of the External Affairs Department said: "This type of conference is an annual occasion, when the experts can get together and talk over their problems. There are no divisions taken at it, the members merely consult among each other. Its significance to New Zealand lies in the fact that it brings here the leaders of Asian and other countries. All previous Colombo Plan Conferences have had a friendly atmosphere and a unity of approach, in that all concerned have had a desire to tackle common problems of economic development. While the Conference is taking place a special exhibition showing New Zealand’s role in the Plan will be on display in’ Parliament Buildings. It features a stereoscopic picture of the host city Wellington, and uses ingenious lighting methods to illustrate the movements of students and observers, and experts taking part in the Plan. — FO