ISLAMABAD, Sept 15: The newly-elected Director General of World Trade Organization (WTO), Pascal Lamy, would likely to visit Pakistan before the Hong Kong Ministerial Conference to be held in December.
Talking to Commerce Minister Humayun Akhtar on telephone from Geneva to seek his assessment of the discussions at the recently concluded G-20 meeting at Bhurban, the WTO DG said that visit to Pakistan was his priority and he would like to come here before the Hong Kong moot.
An official announcement issued here on Thursday said that the minister informed the WTO DG that the G-20 ministers expected that major economies should at the earliest respond to the proposals on agricultural reforms submitted by the group.
The G-20 would like to see a draft text of the agreement in good time before the Hong Kong Ministerial, he said and added that the draft text should be negotiated in an inclusive and transparent manner and allow sufficient time for WTO members to carefully examine it.
Mr Khan suggested to the WTO chief that there should be some mile-posts from now on till the Hong Kong ministerial to gauge the progress. The group felt that the WTO ministers should meet in mid-October in Geneva when the progress of negotiations would be reviewed by the Trade Negotiating Committee (which has an overall supervision of negotiations), he added. Such a meeting would help in resolving sticking issues so that the process could move forward smoothly.
He said that the G-20 would like that the level of ambition for the Hong Kong ministerial should be determined by October so that it would not meet the same fate like Cancun and Seattle ministerials.
For this purpose, Mr Khan said, the focus should be on a few important issues (mostly of market access) of Doha Development Agenda and not try to cover all issues. However, ambition in the key items of agenda, in particular, on agriculture should not be lowered, he added.
