"The timetable is very important" for WTO members before the global trade body's ministerial meeting to be held in China's Hong Kong on the Doha Development Agenda (DDA), said a Hong Kong trade official.

"We agreed on a big and bold agenda at Doha, and we also need a big and bold result in Hong Kong," said John Tsang, Secretary for Commerce, Industry and Technology of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), here Monday.

Tsang told Xinhua in an exclusive interview that all 148 members of the WTO are looking to conclude the negotiations of theDoha Development Agenda (DDA) in 2006. The Dalian informal ministerial meeting serves as a kind of platform for the endgame.

In November 2001, the declaration of the Fourth WTO Ministerial Conference, held in Doha, Qatar, provided the mandate for negotiations on a range of subjects and other work, including issues concerning the implementation of the present agreements.

Tsang was here to attend the Dalian informal ministerial meeting, which will focus on the DDA negotiations. Ministers will have in-depth discussions on the five core areas of the conference: agriculture, non-agriculture market access, development, services and rules. He and the Minister of Commerce Bo Xilai will co-chair the two-day meeting.

Each member holds different stands on all the above issues and struggles for its core interests, noted Tsang. "All the members should reach a consensus -- a single undertaking - otherwise, no conclusion can be drawn, which would make the negotiation very complicated," said Tsang.

He pledges a successful WTO ministerial conference to achieve acredible outcome, and holds that a successful Hong Kong Ministerial Conference and the smooth conclusion of DDA negotiations will be the best answers to the anti-globalization arguments.

Tsang said Hong Kong expected an outcome for this round of negotiations that was ambitious and meaningful, and most importantly,commercially relevant.

"The DDA presents us with a once in a generation opportunity toremove distorting subsidies in agriculture, to bring about ambitious reduction of tariffs and non-tariff barriers for industrial and agricultural products alike, and to create new and meaningful commercial opportunities in services," notes Tsang.

Source: Xinhua