HONG KONG, Dec 14: Commerce Minister Humayun Akhtar Khan on Wednesday urged WTO-member states to move the negotiation process forward for reaching the “66 per cent target” by the end of the current week as part of achieving the objective of completing the Doha Development Round in 2006.

Speaking at a plenary of the ministerial conference here, the minister said it was imperative to achieve the target for making the round a success and the objective of completing the round within the due time did not falter.

“Any further postponement of the round would have serious consequences, and we risk losing this opportunity. We may, therefore, be held responsible for failing to lift millions out of poverty and for depriving the world economy of potential gains of hundreds of billions of dollars,” the minister said.

The minister said trade was an essential ingredient for achieving the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. “In fact, one of the goals requires the development of an open, rule-based, predictable and non-discriminatory trading system. This is precisely the aim of the Doha Development Agenda.”

Fortunately, for the first time through coherent programmes like “aid for trade”, serious efforts are being made to ensure that benefits from a multilateral system accrue to everyone, he adds.

The minister said: “We have within our reach agreement on two out of three pillars in agriculture — domestic support and export competition. On cotton, we are all committed to an ambitious and expeditious result, and with some flexibility from a major economy, we can have an early harvest.”

Mr Khan said the major area of weakness was a wide divergence in the remaining pillar of agriculture -– market access. Without a major progress in this area, the ambition of the whole round may be seriously undermined, he adds.

An estimated 90 per cent of gains would result from ambitious cuts in tariffs, according to studies done by the World Bank and other researchers.

The commerce minister made it clear that any advance in market access to agriculture must be matched by progress in market access for services and non-agricultural goods.

“What we do need to avoid at this stage is brinkmanship. We all need to show our hands to make parallel progress in all areas. We may have different strategies, but it will be good to keep in mind our common Agenda -– the one we adopted in Doha,” he added.