British Prime Minister Tony Blair urged developed nations to cut trade barriers to help reduce poverty in the world's poorest countries, British newspaper Financial Times reported on Monday.

Failure to make progress at World Trade Organization (WTO) talks in December in Hong Kong could mark the end of WTO attempts to boost the world economy by lowering trade barriers from farm goods to services, said Blair in an article published in the newspaper before a trip to China and India.

"Clearly there is an enormous amount at stake in Hong Kong. Failure to make progress could even be fatal for the trade round," said Blair.

"Following the G8 commitment at Gleneagles to set a credible date for the end of agricultural export subsidies, it should be possible at Hong Kong to set a deadline of 2010," Blair said in his article.

"We need to go further. It is our moral responsibility to help those in poverty by allowing them the means to grow and prosper," Blair said, adding "it is clearly also in our own economic interest."

He said WTO ministers meeting in Hong Kong have a "huge responsibility" to take steps to lift people out of poverty.

The WTO had hoped to announce a significant advance in the Doha Round

of free trade negotiations in July, but member states were divided.

Blair said the WTO had not responded sufficiently to the needs of developing counties and had failed to increase African countries' access to rich countries' markets.

"There are many obstacles to overcome - high tariffs, quotas, subsidies and weak capacity," he said.

Blair is in Beijing for the eighth China-EU Summit, hoping to reach deals on trade, investment and climate change with China. On Tuesday, he will kick off a visit to China as a guest of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.

Britain, now holding the EU rotating presidency, became China's largest trade partner and third largest investor among the EU countries in 2004.

Source: Xinhua