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Annan for more flexibility in global trade talks

AFP, Geneva
UN chief Kofi Annan on Monday called for countries to show greater flexibility in global trade talks to overcome difficulties two months ahead of a key WTO meeting.
The UN Secretary General said the three-year series of trade liberalisation talks launched by World Trade Organisation (WTO) members in Doha in 2001 could provide a "powerful engine of growth".
"Yet success is by no means assured. There are only 10 weeks left before the ministerial meeting in Cancun (Mexico). Key deadlines have been missed," Annan told the opening day of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).
"The time has come for all parties to show more flexibility and give priority to the global interest.
"It is not too late to avoid a setback for economic development," he added.
Ministers of the 146 WTO members are due to hold a "midterm" review of the so-called Doha Development round of trade talks in the Mexican resort of Cancun from September 10-14.
But the negotiations are flagging, and progress has been held up by deep divisions, especially in key areas such as agriculture and access for the poor to cheap medicines, where interim deadlines for agreements have been missed.
The annual four-week session of ECOSOC initially focuses on rural development in developing countries.
Annan pointed out that the Doha agenda aimed to eliminate unfair competition faced by farmers and producers in poor coun-
tries and to open developed country markets to developing counties' goods.
It had also sought to give poor people better access to life-saving medicines while preserving incentives for medical research, he said.
"In the broadest sense, it could provide a powerful engine of growth, thus facilitating the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals," he said.
Halving the proportion of people living in worst poverty was one of eight goals adopted by 150 heads of state and government at the United Nations Millennium Summit in September 2000.
The goals for 2015 include reversing the spread of HIV/AIDS and halving from 20 to 10 per cent the proportion of the world's population without access to safe drinking water.