APEC economic leaders Saturday called for cooperation in breaking impasse in agricultural negotiations, in particular market access, in a bid to make progress in WTO's Doha Round as a whole.

In the "APEC Economic Leaders' Statement on Hoha Development Agenda (DDA)" issued Saturday in Busan, the APEC leaders said they are committed to facing up to the political challenges associated with the WTO Doha Development Agenda (DDA).

The APEC economic leaders believe that the DDA negotiations have an unmatched potential to strengthen the multilateral trading system, promote global economic growth and, in particular, improve economic development opportunities for developing countries.

The statement said, achieving the DDA is crucial component of the global partnership to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

For this reason, the Doha Round must be carried to a successful conclusion - at the high level of ambition established in the Doha Declaration - by the end of 2006, it said.

APEC economies, which represent close to 50 percent of world trade and almost 60 percent of global GDP, have benefited greatly from an open trading system. Average tariffs of APEC economies have been reduced by two-thirds in the past 15 years. This has been a period of rapid economic growth, particularly for APEC's lower income economies, it said.

The APEC leaders said the Doha Round is essential to keeping APEC economies on this path of growth and development. It is also essential for all WTO members.

The statement said, all WTO members must achieve an ambitious and overall balanced outcome at the end of the Round, which include, among others: a comprehensive package in agriculture to ensure substantial reductions in trade distorting domestic support, substantial improvements in market access by significantly lowering tariffs and reducing quantitative restrictions, and the elimination of all forms of export subsidies of developed members by 2010.

The outcome must also include an agreement on non-agricultural market access through a Swiss formula with ambitious coefficient(s) and sectoral agreements on a voluntary basis that will ensure real market access improvements for all WTO Members and an agreement in services that will create commercially meaningful and real market access opportunities in all WTO members, said the statement.

The economic leaders are here for the two-day meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation in South Korea's port city of Busan.

Source: Xinhua