"We must accord priority and urgency to ensuring that the developing worldreaps the promised benefits of the previous Uruguay Round of trade talks"before we embark on any new negotiations," Malaysian trade ministrysecretary general Asmat Kamaludin told a meeting of ministers from the WorldTrade Organisation here. His remarks echoed comments from other developingcountries who feel they have been short-changed in previous trade talks,being forced to open their markets but gaining only limited ability toexport their goods to the industrial world.

Developing country delegates also hit back at efforts by the industrialworld to add labour standards to the WTO's mandate as US President BillClinton proposed trade sanctions against countries using child labour andviolating workers' rights. "Trade sanctioning should not be accepted as ameans to promote the adoption of core labour standards," Thai commerceminister Supachai Panitchpakdi, who is to take over as WTO director generalin 2002, told ministers.

"We need a dialogue on trade and labour, but this dialogue should be aone-off meeting" grouping relevant organisations such as the InternationalLabour Organisation (ILO) and WTO, but not a WTO-organised event and notdesigned to draw up binding labour rules, he said. Industrial countries havebeen under pressure to offer some new concessions to the developing world towin them over to the idea of a new global trade round, due to be launchedhere at the end of the WTO meeting Friday.

Much of the developing world is reluctant to agree until the Uruguay Roundhas been fully implemented, citing a whole list of areas where promisedaccess has been slow in coming, from textiles to leather goods. But so farthe industrial world has failed to agree on an offer to scrap tariffs on allimports from more than 40 of the world's least developed countries, or tooffer instant improved access on textiles.

A proposed text for the ministerial declaration to be issued Friday,prepared by the European Union and supported by Japan calls for "positivemeasures designed to ensure that developing developing countries, andespecially the least-developed economies," share in the benefits of freertrade. But while it says "more progress needs to be made towards realisingthis objective" it does not propose tariff-free access for least developednations. Even if such an offer is made, it would exclude key textile andagricultural exports, undermining an initiative which could providesignificant benefit to the world's poorest nations, critics say.

The EU proposed agenda also offers an accelerated move to the next phase ofpreviously-agreed market opening, to January next year instead of January2002. But international aid agency Oxfam said that if textiles were excludedfrom the tariff-free offer to the world's poorest countries the mostimportant items would be left out. "Without giving ground on agriculturalexport subsidies and greater market access for all products, rich countriesare going to wreck any hope of Seattle producing a fair deal for the world'spoorest countries," Oxfam director David Bryer said in a statement. When itcomes to agriculture the developing countries remain hostage to along-standing row between the European Union and other agriculturalexporters over the EU's subsidies to farm exports which leave developingcountries' produce competing with artificially low-priced EU goods.