ISLAMABAD, May 13: Pakistan has urged developed countries to scale down their tariffs drastically, reduce trade distorting subsidies and domestic support on agriculture products for making progress on Doha Development Agenda.

Talking to Dawn on Thursday, Commerce Minister Humayun Akhtar Khan said that without clear progress on these three pillars - market access, domestic support and export support - it might not be possible to get the trade negotiations back on track.

"We want developed countries to provide market access to the products of developing countries and do away with all kinds of domestic support," he remarked.

A Pakistani delegation, led by State Minister Tariq Ikram and Ambassador to the WTO Dr Manzoor Ahmed, will participate in the mini-ministerial meeting to be held in Paris on Friday. The meeting will be held at the sideline of the annual ministerial meeting of the Organization of Economic Cooperation andDevelopment (OECD).

Pakistan has been invited for the first time in this meeting. During the mini-ministerial meeting, developed countries would review progress on the negotiations following the failure of the Cancun ministerial conference held in Mexico in Sept 2003.

Mr Khan said that it was hoped that the meeting would result in developing some consensus among the members on various issues, including agriculture, non-market access (NAMA), services, the Singapore Issues and development for making progress in Doha Development Agenda.

He said the meeting would be followed by yet another meeting of the G20 countries in Brazil to develop consensus and seek opinions of member countries on various issues concerning the interests of developing countries.

Answering a question, the commerce minister said the EU had softened its position on various issues that included reduction in export subsidies, export credit and food in aid.

Mr Khan said Pakistan wanted more market access for non-agriculture products. On negotiations on services sector, he said Pakistan wanted that all developed countries to show openness to developing countries' interests, which in this sector often focused on "mode 4" - temporary presence abroad and professional activities of natural persons.

On the Singapore Issues, the minister said that like other developing countries Pakistan also favoured negotiations on trade facilitation inside the single undertaking.