ISLAMABAD, June 30: WTO Director General Pascal Lamy has invited Commerce Minister Humayun Akhtar Khan for striking a deal on modalities for cutting tariffs and subsidies on farm and industrial goods.

Commerce Secretary Syed Asif Shah told Dawn on Friday that the minister would represent a group of developing countries, mostly having the same position on the formula for the cutting of tariffs on industrial goods. The green-room meeting would continue till Sunday to reach some understanding on the disputed areas.

Around 60 trade ministers from the key 149-WTO member countries are in Geneva for intense WTO negotiations on subsidy and industrial trade.

Mr Shah said a similar meeting was held in July 2004 in Geneva when ministers from 30-40 countries had tried to help broker the ‘July Framework' agreement that revived the Doha round talks, which had been moribund since the collapse of Cancun ministerial conference in September 2003.

The secretary said the commerce minister was also invited to a meeting of the group of 11-member developing countries on non-agriculture market access (NAMA) to discuss issues pertaining to industrial goods market access. Although Pakistan is not a member of this coalition, nevertheless since they are supporting Pakistan's proposed formula on industrial goods, it was invited to take part in the group's deliberations, he added.

Meanwhile, an official announcement said the commerce minister told the meeting of G20 that the ongoing meeting was a ‘make or break’ for the Doha round. He cautioned that if the round was allowed to go into hibernation it would allow major subsidisers and protectionist countries to continue with their current policies at the cost of developing countries.Mr Khan said: “In case of agriculture market access, we have a widely acknowledged middle ground position. We must ensure that our middle ground approach is not allowed to be eroded through the sensitive products route and on domestic support. We need to keep our ambition high and must ensure that the cuts are real.” He emphasised the need for maintaining the solidarity of G20 in order to achieve their objectives.

The commerce minister also had a meeting with new United States Trade Representative Ms Susan Schwab and discussed the options and possibilities for an agreement in the ongoing negotiations.