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Developing nations plan 'common front' at WTO

Pakistan said on Wednesday that developing countries planned to put up a common front at the World Trade Organisation summit opening in Doha on Friday.

Commerce Minister Abdul Razzak Dawood told a news conference he hoped the November 9-13 conference, aimed at launching a new trade round, would succeed -- unlike the December 1999 Seattle gathering that failed amid acrimony among delegates and massive anti-globalisation protests. Dawood, who will lead the Pakistan delegation at the Doha conference, said Islamabad had had discussions about the WTO issues with other members of the South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation, other developing countries, Islamic countries and D-8 group of developing countries.

"So the developing countries have got a common viewpoint and, God willing, we should be able to put up a common front and protect our interests," he said.

At the news conference, Dawood made no mention or refer to news on Wednesday of a gun attack on an airbase in Qatar used by US warplanes. Ministers from the WTO's 142 member states are due to meet in the Qatari capital of Doha from November 9-13.

Qatari security forces shot dead a Qatari man who opened fire earlier in the day at the Udeid airbase some 40 km (25 miles) south of Doha. The US embassy said some Americans were wounded in the attack on the base.

The WTO's chief Mike Moore said in Doha the gun attack was not related to the grouping's meeting and he did not believe the incident would affect the conference.

Dawood said issues to be raised by Pakistan and other developing countries would include textiles, liberalisation of quotas, market access to their products, their objections to heavy agriculture subsidies in Western countries, and a demand for extension of a Trade Related Investment Measures agreement.

The Western world would be raising issues such as competition, investment, environment and labour policies, whose non-implementation by the developing countries could lead to disputes between the two sides, he said.

He said the developing countries "don't mind some of these things coming" but asks the developed world to be "a little more liberal in these issues".

"We would like an objective discussion with the spirit of trying to resolve issues rather than creating issues," he said.

Dawood said that on the sidelines of the WTO conference he would also hold bilateral talks with his counterparts from the United States, Canada, European Union, Japan, China, Turkey, India, Bangladesh and Australia.

"The sole objective of these bilateral discussion is to try to get more and more market access for our products," he said.

Western countries and Japan have promised to be more sympathetic to Pakistan's trade and economic concerns after it joined the US-led coalition against terrorism forged after the devastating September 11 hijack attacks on the United States.

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