U.S. Deputy Trade Representative Susan Schwab dismissed speculation that the Doha Development Round has come to an end as negotiations on agricultural market access still remain deadlocked on the fourth day of the Hong Kong Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

"Is this the end of the Doha Round? No! Not yet!" said the U.S. trade official at a press conference here on Friday.

As there is one more year to go, she expressed hope that the great ambitions to move forward would be upheld in spite of lack of progress in the controversial issue of agriculture.

She urged negotiating partners to step up their efforts to find some areas from where to step forward and recognize differences in such core areas as export subsidies, non-agricultural market access (NAMA) and tariff cuts.

Schwab said delegations held "good dialogue" on the development package on Friday. She said all the parties concerned have agreed that market access is critical to development and that development is the focus of the Doha Round.

At WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy's request, several WTO members came up with next text on several specific issues in agriculture, NAMA and development talks.

These submissions were discussed in a "Green Room" meeting that continued into the early hours of Friday.

During the gathering, members were presented a draft text on duty- and quota-free market access for least-developed country (LDC) exports that would not exclude any countries, but would contain limited exemption for certain products.

LDC's long-standing demand for duty- and quota-free market access has commanded the lion's share of the negotiations on the " development package" that members have set their sights on since they agreed to lower their ambitions in agriculture, NAMA and services, the core market access areas of the negotiations.

Source: Xinhua