ISLAMABAD, Oct 18: Commerce Minister Humayun Akhtar Khan has said the best way to move forward in trade liberalization was through multilateral negotiations rather than bilateral deals.

Addressing at the influential think tank, the Evian Group, in Montreux (Switzerland), the only invited commerce minister as a guest speaker, he said the successful conclusion of the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) was a unique opportunity, according to a fax message released to media here on Monday.

However, given the previous experience of ministerial meetings, it would not be prudent to build up the forthcoming ministerial meeting at Hong Kong as a do or die situation. For successfully meeting the challenges of readjustments due to elimination of preferences for poorer countries, Mr Khan felt that a greater coherence was needed amongst the Britton-Woods institutions (IMF and World Bank).

The commerce minister feels that while there is optimism amongst WTO members for closing the Doha Round at the Hong Kong ministerial conference in December 2005, there is a need to look back and assess the results of the Uruguay Round and see why the gains made by some developing countries, including Pakistan, did not come up to expectation, and the estimates of gains of $200 to $500 billion proved to be over-optimistic.

In his view both external and internal factors were responsible. Amongst the external obstacles was a lack of market access, while the failure of those countries to carry out domestic reforms by opening up their economies was the chief internal factor.

Mr Khan also referred to new challenges being faced by low income developing countries due to the fact that these countries were being increasingly squeezed between relatively higher income countries and least-developed countries which were being given increased market access through free trade areas and other schemes.

The minister also spoke about the role of new actors at the world's economic scene, particularly China. He acknowledged that the Chinese boom was causing anxiety for many countries. But he felt that since the global economy was not a zero-sum game, developing countries could gain by taking advantage of the additional opportunities being created. In this connection, he referred to the growth of Japan in the 1960s and 70s and the opportunities it created for the East Asian countries.