ISLAMABAD, Oct 10: Commerce Minister, Humayun Akhtar Khan on Friday said Pakistan, along with other major developing countries, was asking for major reductions in agriculture subsidies, domestic support and scaling down of tariffs by the developed countries to get maximum markets for their products.

The minister said this in a briefing to WTO Task Force of Parliamentarians here on Friday. Several parliamentarians including Liaquat Baloch, Dr Donia Aziz and Jehangir Tareen attended the briefing.

The minister told the participants of the meeting that Pakistan was an important member of the G-22, a coalition of developing countries that was formed at the Cancun ministerial conference and which had now become a strong negotiator in WTO regime.

He said that Pakistan had played a pro-active role on WTO as other G-22 countries. “We strongly demand elimination of subsidies on agriculture and reduction of export subsidy and tariff,” he said.

“We are not as defensive as are other countries of the G-22. In fact Pakistan was trying to bring the two extremist group —the European Union and G-22 together on WTO,” he said.

Mr Khan further said that bilateral and regional trade agreements were not as beneficial for Pakistan as WTO would be.