Hong Kong's trade secretary on Tuesday stressed the importance that World Trade Organization (WTO) members keep the overall ambition for the Doha Development Round high, said a government press release.

Speaking at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Annual Ministerial Meeting in Busan, South Korea, Secretary for Commerce, Industry and Technology John Tsang said that WTO members should aim to capture as much as possible of the progress already made, which was vital to ensuring that negotiations could move forward after Hong Kong for a successful conclusion of the Doha Round by 2006, according to the release.

Stressing the importance of deciding on a development package, Tsang said this was the "Development Round."

"Yet the focus on agriculture has meant that a number of issues of key concern to developing countries have not received the attention that they deserve," he said, adding this imbalance of attention has exacerbated the suspicions of developing members about the commitment of developed countries to this part of the agenda.

"Commitment to a more clearly articulated package would, I believe, do much to create an atmosphere of confidence and comfort amongst developing countries, which would be conducive to success, " he said.

The official outlined five possible components of the Development package, which include an unambiguous commitment to Tariff Free/Quota Free market access for products of the Least Developed Countries, harvesting as many of the agreement-specific Special and Differential Treatment proposals as is possible, and agreement on a longer transition period for Least Developed Countries under the Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and Trade-related investment measures (TRIMs) agreements.

Tsang also listed within the package commitment to an Aid for Trade program, which among other things should be sufficient to enable early implementation of the Trade Facilitation measures on which agreement is already very close, and securing a permanent solution to the TRIPS and Public Health issue.

He said that the current picture of negotiations seemed less than clear, but it was not all bad news. Considerable progress had been made since July, 2004.

Noting that there had been the first across-the-board discussion amongst a group of ministers in Geneva last week, he said this had helped focus minds on both the potential gains in each area and the likely compromises needed to secure them.

He emphasized the importance of keeping the ambition for the Round high so that pressure on the key protagonists could be kept up to settle their differences as soon as possible after the Sixth Ministerial Conference (MC6).

"This is not the first time that APEC ministers have played this role," he said, adding that he trusted that the Ministers' statement put out later could reflect this continuing high level of ambition as well as setting out in clear terms what WTO members should work for both at MC6 and during the final 12 months of the Round.

Source: Xinhua