Ministers from 149 members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) gathered in Hong Kong Tuesday for the Sixth Ministerial Conference, which is seen as a new bid to move the stalled Doha Round negotiations forward.

In recent weeks, WTO members have lowered their expectations of the long-awaited meeting in the face of a bitter dispute between rich and poor nations over farm subsidies and tariffs.

"Expectations of Hong Kong will not be, with the availability of time, what they were two months ago," Indian Trade Minister Kamal Nath said late last month.

A framework agreement was originally expected to be reached at the Dec. 13-18 meeting so that the four-year-old Doha Round trade talks can be successfully concluded by the end of 2006.

Launched in the Qatari capital in 2001, the Doha Round aims to lower barriers to trade across the world and reduce poverty in the developing countries. But it bogged down in a deadlock after the fifth ministerial meeting collapsed in Cancun, Mexico, in 2003 over agriculture.

The European Union and the United States have been accused of failing to offer deep enough cuts in farm subsidies and import tariffs, which developing countries say have prevented them from competing effectively on the world stage.

"OECD (the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development) member states spent 350 billion US dollars every year in agricultural subsidies, which is six times their development budget," said former World Bank chief Jim Wolfensohn.

At the same time, proposals put forward by the EU and the United States have triggered criticism at home.

France have slammed the EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson for his plans to cut EU's farm subsidies and tariffs by 70 percent and 60 percent respectively, saying he should abide by the frame fixed by EU members for the negotiations.

However, neither developed nor developing countries can afford the failure of the Doha Round, which WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy warned could cost the world economy hundreds of billions of US dollars in lost trade opportunities.

"What is already on the table can translate into a good result for development," he said. "It would be certainly disastrous if what we have disappears because we fail to move the negotiations forward."

Under such circumstances, delegates would try to draft a " roadmap," highlighting what has to be done in the next year, and to hold another meeting in March to keep the Doha Round on track, analysts said.

At a meeting of the G-7 finance ministers and central bankers last week, the world's seven most industrialized nations pledged to inject momentum into the Doha Round talks.

They said the upcoming Hong Kong meeting marked a "critical step" toward a global trade deal and "the opportunity must be seized."

Ministers from India, Brazil, China, South Africa and Russia were invited to the weekend meeting in London in the hope of making further progress ahead of the Hong Kong meeting.

"It is clear that there has to be more give on both sides and we hope we can approach this in the spirit of reciprocity," said US Treasury Secretary John Snow.

And if the current Doha Round talks succeed, the developing countries will become the biggest beneficiaries, drawing two- thirds of the almost 300 billion US dollars in global economic gains, according to World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz.

"The gains of Doha could reach 300 billion US dollars, of which the largest benefits would go to the poorest countries and the poorest people," he said.

Source: Xinhua