DHAKA, Jan 17: A two-day international business conference kicked off in Dhaka on Saturday with a call for narrowing down the gap between developed and developing nations for a fair international trading regime , making a reversal to the Cancun debacle.

The high-profile business gathering "the first major conference after Cancun" further called for restructuring of the international financial institutions like the World Bank and the IMF and also the WTO.

Policymakers from 37 countries, the European Union and the World Trade Organization, will discuss and debate trade relating issues, focusing mainly on global economic governance and challenges of multilateralism at the Bangladesh-China Friendship Conference Centre.

As many as 363 business delegates from 37 countries, including 181 from Bangladesh, are taking part in the trade related conference, first of its kind in the country. A message of the United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan that wished the conference a success was read out at the inaugural session.

However, Prime Minister of Thailand Dr Thaksin Shinawatra, who delivered the keynote speech at the conference on "global economic governance and challenges of multilateralism", demanded a new world economic model accommodating developing nations' interests saying the existing one only benefits the rich countries.

"It is clear to me that this economic model has now reached its limit," he said, adding that the existing economic order contributed toward a "golden age of growth and consumption" in the United States and some parts of the West, while much of Asia remained mired in poverty. "The West will, therefore, have to come up with a new economic model if it is to extricate from this dilemma."

Those attending the high profile conference included, among others, WTO Director-General Supachai Panitchpakdi, European Union Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy, commerce ministers of Sri Lanka, Turkey, Indonesia, Thailand, Zimbabwe and host Bangladesh.

Thaksin urged developing countries, particularly Asia to "commercialize their local wisdom" and work with their "basic tenets of market economics" to come up with their own economic model befitting their stage of development and particular circumstances.

Earlier, Prime Minister of Bangladesh Khaleda Zia, who inaugurated the conference, called upon powerful nations and international institutions influencing the current globalization process to give policy supports to development objectives of poorer countries.

"Globalization holds out promise, but with contrasts. It represents prosperity for the fortunate few, and despair for millions. The world is witnessing an unprecedented wave of progress, while millions are mired in extreme poverty," she said.

Observing that the global economic governance is generating inequitable incomes, Ms Khaleda said: "The backlash against globalization draws its force from such inequalities. We have to search for ways to bridge this gap."

Referring to the barriers to market access, the Bangladesh premier mentioned that subsidies in developed countries distort markets, while helping few and the inefficient in their countries. "The world would be a better place without such trade-distorting subsidies."

Khaleda Zia said developing countries like Bangladesh gain less from trade compared to the developed countries. "We do not have many products to trade. Nor do we have the resources to provide a cushion for our firms that suffer from world market fluctuations," she added.

Dwelling on the failures in the earlier trade talks, especially the latest one in Cancun, the Prime Minister expressed the Bangladesh view that Cancun might be considered a setback, "but we still have the opportunity to turn things around".

"Those who have gained in the past make a greater contribution to the present enabling others to benefit as well," she insisted.

She also demanded that there be freer movement of other factor of production labour. "Through the temporary movement of skilled and less-skilled labour, we can provide services to many other countries," she said, adding that the potential benefit of such schemes, to both the sending and recipient countries, is immense.