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Great difference still exists between the developed and developing members as the Sixth Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (Ito) went into its second day Wednesday.
The United States and the European Union (EU), who were accused of failing to offer deep enough cuts in farm subsidies, tried to shift the focus of the long-awaited meeting to development and market access of industrial products.
Addressing the plenary session, US Trade Representative Rob Portman said Washington will double its annual trade related assistance from US$1.3 billion in 2005 to US$2.7 billion by 2010.
"We believe in trade and we believe we must do more," he said.
However, Portman stressed that these funds and the additional money he announced must go hand-in-hand with market access expansion and the elimination of trade-distorting subsidies.
The US decision came one day after the EU announced to substantially increase its Aid for Trade to 2 billion euros by 2010 from the current 400 million euros.
In his speech, EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson also called on all the developed countries to commit to providing duty and quota-free access to the products from the least developed countries.
But he conditioned the new package of Aid for Trade, which aims to help poor countries to build capability to trade on market opening.
Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso, whose country was also blamed for farm subsidies, stressed measures to fully integrate all WTO members in the multilateral trading system.
"For them to successfully participate in trade, their production capacity should grow. Their products must proceed with greater ease to their ports to be shipped abroad. And they must find consumers in overseas markets," he said.
The G20, a group of developing countries including India, Brazil and China, urged rich countries to drastically cut their farm subsidies, which were alleged to block the Doha Round trade talks.
Kamal Nath, India's commerce and industry minister, said the Doha Round will have no credibility without substantial benefits for weakest WTO members.
"We need to finalize the proposal for duty-free, quota free access for exports of least developing countries to developed country markets without hedging," he said.
He said developing countries are also ready to play their part according to their abilities.
Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim criticized developed countries for their slowness in cutting farm subsidies.
"After so many years -- should I say decades or centuries? -- remnants of feudalism have been lingering on side by side with other forms of unacceptable privileges," he said.
On the same day, Chinese Commerce Minister Bo Xilai called for special treatment to the developing members of the WTO.
"The talks should give developing countries real and tangible benefits to boost their confidence in the Doha Round talks," said Bo.
China supports the idea that the Doha Round talks should reach a balanced agreement, which he said will be conducive to the development of developing economies.
"Currently, significant imbalance does exist between developed countries and developing countries and such imbalance has affected the healthy development of the world economy," said the Chinese minister.
Rashid Mohamed Rashid, Egyptian trade minister, said the Egyptian government is firmly committed to the WTO, and to the vital role it plays in maintaining a fair, transparent and rules-based global trading system.
Egypt is "determined to work closely with all WTO members to spread the benefits of trade more widely, and help less developed countries to take advantage of more open markets," added the minister, who also spoke in the capacity of coordinator of the African group.
Ministers from WTO's 149 members met here on Tuesday in a new bid to advance the Doha Round, which aims to lift barriers to trade and reduce poverty in developing countries.
(Xinhua News Agency December 15, 2005)
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