Kim Hak-Su, the United Nation's under-secretary general, said Tuesday in Macao that the future of the Doha Round negotiations remains unclear.

Kim told Xinhua at a press conference on the sidelines of a high-level government-business conference, that the forthcoming sixth ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO) will be in a hard bid to clinch a preliminary deal for the Doha Round.

However, the official said there are both pessimistic and optimistic predictions for the result of the WTO ministerial meeting, scheduled for December in Hong Kong.

At least all WTO member states are to send representatives to attend the Hong Kong meeting, as they are all aware that no one afford one more failure in Hong Kong, said the UN official.

The WTO ministerial meeting held in Cancun, Mexico, in 2003 failed to reach an agreement in hot topics including agriculture, producing a stalemate for the Doha Round talks.

Doha Round, a negotiation aiming to bridge the gap between multilateralism and regionalism in the economic sector, was initiated in 2001.

Source: Xinhua