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A revised draft ministerial text for this month's World Trade Organization's sixth ministerial conference in Hong Kong was circulated to members yesterday, including new language on 'parallel elimination' of all forms of export subsidies and bracketed language on an 'early harvest' of trade-related measures for four West African cotton producing countries

The second draft Ministerial Text that was submitted to WTO Members this evening

The recent proposals by some major developed countries in the WTO threaten the developmental content of the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) and it is thus timely to reclaim the development content of the Round, nine developing countries said

Theme: 'The Hong Kong Ministerial Text: a failure for development'

The draft Ministerial text put forward on 26 November by the WTO Director-General and the General Council chair received, at the informal heads of delegation meeting on Monday, some pleasantries over the so-called 'bottom up' approach on how the text was put together, with several developing countries however highlighting the fact that many parts of the current draft did not enjoy the agreement of all members.

On 30 November, Honduras and Panama filed a complaint with the WTO against the new customs duty imposed by the EU on banana imports from 1 January 2006

The United States' top trade envoy said Thursday it's unlikely negotiators will settle a farm-subsidy deadlock at a world trade summit this month.

The texts were produced on the 29th and 30th November, respectively, and are an attempt to draft more specific language based on the reports from the Chairs of Agriculture and NAMA negotiations.

Trade unions and civil society organizations presented a detailed letter to World Trade Organization (WTO) Director General Pascal Lamy on Wednesday explaining how the WTO services negotiations have been undemocratic and undermining the consensus mode of decision-making.

Media release: Independent think-tank IBON Foundation urges government negotiators to resist further liberalization of the agricultural sector at the upcoming Ministerial of the World Trade Organization (WTO).