First sessions were on agriculture, non-agricultural market access and development issues show that differences remain on a number of issues, the ministers handling these issues reported to heads of delegations at an evening meeting on 14 December 2005.

They had been asked to "facilitate" consultations on these subjects by the conference Chairperson, John Tsang, Hong Kong's Commerce, Industry and Technology Secretary. He told the heads of delegations that time is running short, so they need to move quickly to negotiations that are based on a text.

At a separate formal meeting on cotton, a number of African countries called for a clear decision on this at the Hong Kong Ministerial Conference, arguing that failure to reach agreement would undermine the credibility of the WTO.

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The four countries that had originally proposed the cotton initiative (Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mali) called for members to act quickly and concretely, in order to help countries escape a situation that the Chad minister described as worse than misery.

They blamed subsidies in some rich countries on depressed prices and repeated the proposal they submitted to the Cotton Sub-Committee in Geneva a month earlier.

Some other African countries (Niger, Cameroon, Guinea, Uganda, Ghana and Rwanda) supported the proposal and said they are alsoaffected.

India described the cotton situation as a "bleeding wound on the conscience of the world", Brazil said the G-20 considers this to be a priority issue in Hong Kong, Australia said a breakthrough in the agriculture negotiations is needed to deal with the cotton problem, and the EU appealed to all WTO members to work for a solution, saying it had opened its markets and reduced its subsidies.

The US appreciated other countries' restraint in not mentioning the US by name and accepted that as the major subsidizer it has a responsibility to deal with the problem, which it will not shirk.

Part of this is happening with new proposed legislation aimed at scrapping the export subsidies that a WTO dispute panel ruled was illegal, the US said.

But the US added that 11 studies show that the impact of the subsidies on prices is considerably less than alleged and therefore the problem also arises because of supply constraints, which the African countries also mentioned.

For this reason, the US is also working on development assistance for the four cotton countries to help increase yields and tackle such issues as marketing.

The US concluded it has had good meetings with the "Cotton Four" and will continue to work for a solution.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is the only global international organization dealing with the rules of trade between nations.

At its heart are the WTO agreements, negotiated and signed by the bulk of the world's trading nations and ratified in their parliaments.

The goal is to help producers of goods and services, exporters, and importers conduct their business.
 
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