KARACHI, May 1: The basic purpose of World Trade Organization is to strengthen its hold over economy of developing countries in particular to benefit big countries by simplifying rules of business.

This was stated by Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal’s MNA Muhammad Hussain Mehnati who returned from Geneva after attending a three-day symposium on “Ten years of the WTO” as a member of the 25-member official delegation.

Talking to workers at “Idara Noor-i-Haq”, he said that the WTO in the name of free trade wanted to remove all trade barriers from the world economy so that products of big countries could have access to all markets in the world.

Mr Mehnati said that WTO laws and regulations had been linking the economy and the trade with environmental issues and labour reforms, which could be another set back to the economy and commerce of smaller countries.

Pakistan and other development countries are not paying any subsidy to their agri-products while the US and European countries were subsidizing their agri-products up to 50 per cent which had been affecting agri-products exports of the developing countries.