Ministers from 149 states saved long-running global trade talks from collapse today with an interim deal to end farm export subsidies by 2013 and open rich-country markets a bit wider to the world's poorest nations.
Oxfam
Ministers expressed relief that they had averted a repeat of failed conferences in Seattle in 1999 and in Cancun in 2003. But they described the Hong Kong pact as disappointing and said it would be tough to wrap up the talks on time by the end of 2006, after which US President George W Bush may lose his Congressional authority to negotiate trade deals.
"In a week of disappointments, this is no small prize," said European Union Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson. "It is not enough to make this meeting a true success. But it is enough to save it from failure."
The World Trade Organisation (WTO) agreement came after six round-the-clock days of fractious talks between ministers at a Hong Kong harbour-side convention centre and anti-globalisation protests outside that erupted into vicious street battles.
WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy told weary ministers they had injected new impetus into the so-far haplesss Doha round of trade talks, which could boost world economic growth and lift millions of people out of poverty.
"What you all take back from Hong Kong is a new political energy, a potent fuel to reach cruising speed during 2006," he said. "It is not a perfect balance. But, as they say, the perfect is the enemy of the good."
The agreement was a series of compromises and it fell well short of the more ambitious plans the WTO had for Hong Kong. It proposed April 30th, 2006, as a deadline for reaching a draft for the Doha round, a milestone the organisation had originally hoped to reach in Hong Kong.
Big-hitters among developing nations, led by Brazil and India, gave their agreement to the draft but voiced their frustration over the EU's refusal to agree on 2010 as the cut-off date for export support.
"I think the EU owes one to the developing countries. We showed a real will to negotiate and we didn't feel it was the same from the other side," Argentine Trade Minister Alfredo Chiaradia told reporters.
The agreement will bring the elimination of export subsidies for cotton in 2006. It will also quicken the pace at which Washington dismantles subsidies enjoyed by US cotton producers, which African nations say are ruining their economies.
On trade in manufactured goods, the accord fell short of US and European hopes for greater access to poor nations' markets. But non-governmental organisations, which campaign on behalf of developing countries, branded the Hong Kong talks yet another victory for the rich world.
"This is a profoundly disappointing text and a betrayal of development promises by rich countries whose interests have prevailed yet again," relief agency Oxfam said in a statement.
One key element of the plan - an offer of duty-free, quota-free access for imports from the 49 poorest nations of the world - was watered down because of US and Japanese reluctance to accept unbridled trade in goods such as textiles and rice.
"It's a shame the richest countries in the WTO outside Europe could not go the extra mile for the world's poorest countries," Mr Mandelson said.