Export subsides for cotton will be eliminated by developed countries in 2006, agreed members of the World Trade Organization at the sixth WTO ministerial conference which closed in Hong Kong Sunday.

According to a final text of the Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration, which is passed Sunday, the trade-distorting domestic subsides for cotton production will be more quickly and ambitiously reduced.

On market access, the text says that developed countries will give duty and quota free access for cotton exports from least- developed countries from the commencement of the implementation period.

Experts held that the achievement not only holds out the promise of more realistic cotton prices on the world market - a potential boon to developing countries, especially poor African farmers - but also represents a step forward for developing countries which have struggled for years to make "free trade" work for them as well as for the richer industrialized world.

Subsidies for cotton growers from rich countries like the United States were blamed for the low price on world market, which affected both the production and livelihood of cotton farmers in developing countries.

According to leading British charity Oxfam, Africa has lost on average 441 million dollars as a result of trade distortions in world cotton prices.

In another report, Oxfam said that the US-subsidized cotton dumping in the Chinese market has driven 720,000 Chinese farmers out of work.

International cotton prices began to fall in the 1990s, and hit a 30-year low in 2001. Though there were many reasons for this dramatic price decline, global overproduction and export dumping were critical factors. And, in the view of West Africa's producers, the United States was the main culprit.

Statistics show the United States grants more than 3 billion US dollars of subsidies for its cotton farmers every year.

In June 2003, with the governments of Benin, Chad, Mali and Burkina Faso in the lead, West Africa presented a proposal for phasing out cotton subsidies to the World Trade Organization. Three months later, the issue was on the agenda at the Cancun Summit of trade ministers gathering to negotiate the Doha Round of global trade talks.

Africa has 150 cotton factories, with 150,000 cotton workers. Cotton export from Africa accounts for 17 percent of the world total.

Source: Xinhua