Over 1,000 non-governmental organizations (NGO) have been accredited at the Hong Kong Ministerial Meeting of the World Trade Organization to be held in mid-December.

Hong Kong Secretary for Commerce, Industry and Technology John Tsang made the remarks at the NGO Roundtable Forum here on Sunday, according to a government press release.

He said, in fact, that is more than 10 times the number of NGOs that attended the inaugural WTO Ministerial in Singapore in 1996.

He said WTO members over the last decade have increasingly recognized the role that NGOs play in raising public awareness on WTO-related issues, as well as increasing transparency and communication with the public.

Tsang said the Hong Kong Ministerial will claim another first: it will be the first time that accredited NGO representatives and delegates are housed under the same roof, albeit a really large one.

Talking about the problems to be tackled by the coming WTO meetings, he said, to many major agricultural producers, elimination of subsidies by the United States and the European Union is a necessary first step in redressing international market distortion, but by itself it is not sufficient to generate new trade. For that, there must also be genuine new market opening.

Trade in agricultural products accounts only for a relatively small proportion of world trade at about 8 percent. But that does not tell the whole story. For some of the smaller economies, their meager export is all they have got.

He said, in two months, the whole WTO membership needs to flesh out the framework agreed in July 2004 on agriculture and non- agricultural market access, define the level of ambition for the services negotiations, agree on the next concrete steps for the rules negotiations.

He said this is no easy task, but all WTO members will have to ensure that it is accomplished. The stakes are high. The cost of failure is not a price any member can afford to pay.

The Hong Kong Ministerial Meeting of the World Trade Organization is scheduled to be held in Hong Kong between Dec. 13 and 18, more than 10,000 representatives of the WTO members, NGOs and overseas correspondents are expected to attend the largest ever international conference in eight years.

Source: Xinhua