"Hong Kong would do its best for achieving tangible progress in the upcoming Sixth Ministerial Conference (MC6) of the World Trade organization (WTO) and most ministers promised to play a more active role," said John Tsang, MC6 chairman on Tuesday.

Tsang, the Secretary for Commerce, Industry and Technology of Hong Kong, said in an interview with Xinhua that he hoped the 300 ministers from 149 WTO economies could show their flexibility and political commitment during the one-week negotiation.

The MC6, scheduled for Dec. 13 to 18, is thought to be an important platform for advancing the stagnated negotiations of the Doha Round, which is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2006.

Returned from the General Council Meeting of WTO in Geneva on Sunday, Tsang said most of the members considered the Hong Kong conference a key stage for the Doha Round of talks. He believed the bottom-up strategy for the drawing-up of the Hong Kong conference declaration was favorable for achieving progress, thus making the conference an important benchmark of the Doha Round.

Tsang said, in order to achieve progress in negotiations of major sectors, such as agriculture, non-agricultural products market access, rules and service, he invited six other ministers as conference facilitators and five of them are from developing countries.

Tsang wished the conference could achieve comprehensive progress, especially in agriculture, non-agricultural products and market access, which could draw a clear map for the Doha Round of talks.

The Doha Development Agenda, or DDA, aims at promoting free trade and helping underdeveloped countries to access global markets.

John Tsang would put forward five suggestions during the conference to help underdeveloped countries. One of the suggestions was to grant free tariff and market access to dozens of the world's most underdeveloped countries.

He said if the aim was reached, the developing countries could enjoy the "Early Harvest," which would be a great encouragement to the developing economic entities.

Tsang recalled Hong Kong was a small fishing village 50 years ago but became an international trade and financial center because of the opening to the outside world policy, with the backing of the motherland and the hard work of Hong Kong people.

He said the MC6 is the first ministerial conference of WTO to be held in China and the largest ever international conference in Hong Kong since its return to its motherland eight years ago.

He believed it would be an excellent chance to showcase the success of Hong Kong and let the overseas guests see the great change that the free trade brought to Hong Kong.

Source: Xinhua