World trade ministers launched a fresh bid to salvage free trade negotiations amid little hope for major headway, as thousands of protesters marched in the streets to denounce the WTO as an enemy of the poor.
One day into the ministerial meeting, the European Union remained at odds with the United States, Canada and Japan over the scope and implementation of an initiative to provide duty-free quota-free access to least developed countries (LDCs).
US and EU want sectoral /plurilateral negotiations in Services to be launched after the Hong Kong Ministerial. The language in the draft text that will facilitate such negotiations are para. 21 and Annex C
The United States warned trading partners on Wednesday that the world would slip back into protectionism without progress in global talks to reform world commerce, stunting economic growth and hitting the poor.
Martin Khor and Hira Jhamtani, TWN Info Service on WTO and Trade Issues
The Group of 20 developing countries held a Ministerial meeting Tuesday morning and issued a G20 Ministerial Declaration reaffirming its position that agriculture is the central issue of the Doha Round .
People from all over the world united by one common purpose, gathered on the football pitches of Victoria Park in Hong Kong to herald the opening of the Peoples Action Week (PAW) in protest of the official opening of the 6th WTO Ministerial.
Though there are problems in all the critical areas of agriculture, viz., market access, domestic subsidy and export subsidy, the key questions are in the domestic subsidy of the developed countries
