HONG KONG, Dec 16: The Hong Kong ministerial will issue a revised draft text on Saturday to narrow the differences between rich and poor members of the multilateral trading regime and end the conference with a success.

Briefing reporters on Friday on the negotiations of facilitating committees, WTO spokesperson Keith Rockwell said that under the text an attempt would be made to reach some agreements in some areas in the next two days.

But he categorically stated that there was no question of reaching a consensus on finalizing formulas for cutting tariffs on both industrial and farm products. Answering a question, he conceded that the text might contain some new terminologies and new languages.

Talking to Dawn, Hong Kong Ministerial Conference Chairman John C. Tsang said that it was very difficult to achieve a significant deal in the round. He added that he was trying to narrow differences to reach an accord by the end of the current conference.

Mr Tsang said that there were signs of progress here and there, particularly on issues concerning the least developed countries (LDCs). But he said the members remained far from agreeing on outcomes in a number of issues. He stressed that the Hong Kong ministerial conference was neither launching nor concluding a round. Instead it was an opportunity to take the Doha Round a step further towards a conclusion, he said.

Spokesperson Rockwell said that big stress of the member countries was to fix an end date for complete elimination of all forms of export subsidies. No progress was made in other areas of farm talks. He said that some progress had been made on the issue of duty-free market access for LDCs to developed countries.

He said that in the services negotiations, many delegations considered that this offered a sound basis for the way forward. Others wanted the text strengthened; a third group felt that the text was too prescriptive and not in line with the General Agreement on Trade in Services and the Doha negotiating mandate.

He said that Pakistan’s commerce minister expressed concern that delegations had remained increasingly entrenched in the positions they had adopted in Geneva. “They are not flexible enough to turn this ministerial conference into a success story,” he said, cautioning that there might be a risk of some backsliding on this issue.

He said that while there was a broad support for using a Swiss formula (a mathematical formula for cutting tariffs that result in steep cuts on high tariffs) with two coefficients (the numbers in the Swiss formula that determine how steep the cuts are and set ceilings on the final tariffs). He said that several developed countries, who had been indicating in Geneva that they preferred a formula with a single coefficient, had now given a clear support to this dual-coefficient approach.

The group also wanted flexibilities to be independent from the formula, he reported. Differences also remain on the question of unbound tariffs, erosion of tariff preferences and a sectoral component to the NAMA negotiations (such as having totally free trade for some sectors).

He said that many countries wanted to discuss trade and environment, electronic commerce, geographical indications, the WTO intellectual property (TRIPS) agreement and the Convention on Biological Diversity, non-violation complaints in intellectual property.

Meanwhile, EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson in a press conference rejected the demand of 110 member countries for seeking an end date for export subsidy.

“For the EU to offer a final date for eliminating its export subsidies before others have even made equivalent commitments to reform would be senseless. We need to use these negotiations to get compliance by all. That is the point of a multilateral negotiation.”

The US deputy USTR and ambassador told reporters that a development package for the LDCs had been discussed. The concerns of developing countries would be taken into account following the finalization of the package, they added.

The Actionaid in a reaction to the EU stands said that as the entire world put pressure on the EU to give an end date for export subsidies, EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson was backtracking on EU’s commitment to eliminate subsidies and now saying they would be ‘phased out’ and refusing to give an end date.