New York, Safar 14, 1440, Oct 23, 2018, SPA -- Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) has affirmed its full cooperation with the United Nations and the international community to achieve all that is good for humanity and the security, stability and development that all are yearning to achieve. This was unfolded by the Chairman of the Second Committee of the Permanent Mission of the Kingdom to the UN Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Qadi, who said that Saudi Arabia will continue to play its humanitarian, political and economic role, in a sense of responsibility and its Islamic and international standing. It also will keep supporting implementation of the goals of the 2030 Sustainable Development Plan, he said, and the well-being of our world, ensuring that no one is left behind in the general debate on the item of Operational activities for development, as part of the work of the Economic and Financial Committee (II), during the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly, reiterating the statement made by Egypt on behalf of the Group of 77 and China, on international efforts to achieve the goals of sustainable development. We are concerned about the decline in core contributions to these funds, resulting in a deficit that spread negative effects on the achievement of sustainable development goals," he warned. He added that Saudi Arabia attaches great importance to development issues and supports development cooperation efforts among developing countries and countries in the South, particularly in the Arab region. KSA focuses on international cooperation which enhance the national capacities of countries and support their efforts to overcome challenges facing their governments and peoples, in all fields of development, he stated, in economic, environmental, health, social, technical and other aspects, he stressed. Since early 1950s, Saudi Arabia has been providing development assistance, based on the needs identified, through direct assistance to support people, in fragile and crisis-prone countries, in addition to providing soft loans and grants to low-income developing countries, in order to establish basic infrastructure and encourage economic investments in them, to provide suitable job opportunities in these countries, as well as the Kingdom's initiative to exempt the debt of the least developed countries, by waiving more than 6 billion dollars of debt poor countries owed to the Kingdom, which is one of the world's most heavily subsidizing countries, as its percentage to its total national income stood at 1.9%, while the target set by the United Nations is 0.7%, he stated. The total of the Kingdom's aid contribution over the past 30 years has exceeded $100 billion, meaning that the Kingdom is one of the first countries to respond to international calls to provide relief and assistance to countries facing special and urgent situations, as they are affected by disasters, around the world, he concluded. -- SPA 21:04 LOCAL TIME 18:04 GMT 0041 www.spa.gov.sa/w774376