ISLAMABAD, Jan 6: Like other developing countries, members of the G-20 coalition have stepped up their efforts to put the development dimension on the centre stage at the WTO negotiations for full resumption of the suspended talks on the Doha Development Round (DDR).

An official in the commerce ministry told Dawn on Saturday that Pakistan did not expect much to come out of the ‘mini-ministerial’ meeting scheduled to take place in late January 2007 on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

The next two months were particularly critical, and civil society organisations and think-tanks had to be extra vigilant in watching the way the negotiations unfolded, the official said and added mere reduction of subsidies on agricultural products by the US would not meet the needs of developing countries.

The more important issue was “disciplining” subsidies with product-specific caps, and treatment of individual cases, he added.

Developing countries have successfully resisted pressure to “move first” to end the current stalemate in the DDR of WTO negotiations. This is a sign of “growing maturity” and is of critical importance as this may well be the “last opportunity” to put the development dimension mandatory in the negotiations, the official added.

According to the official, WTO director-general Pascal Lamy has informally informed the member countries that if members made concrete new concessions in early January 2007, the Doha Round negotiations could be concluded in 2007.

“New flexibilities have been announced by major players in general terms,” he said, referring to the hints by some governments that they would be willing to soften their bargaining positions.

“The challenge remains to translate this political will and these flexibilities signal into substantive changes in position, which are necessary to unblock the process.”

In his report to delegations on the state of the Doha Round, Lamy pointed out that “no real changes in numbers, notably in agricultural domestic support or tariff protection, have shown up in these discussions, so far,” he acknowledged, “an increasing level of engagement is starting to appear.”

The G-20 members said though there was no breakthrough on agriculture, members had been making a sincere attempt to better understand each other’s position.

They further said discussions must go beyond the technicalities, and developed countries must give some sort of signal that implies that they are ready to make concessions.