Dr. L. Errol Cort flanked by High Commissioner Dr. Carl Roberts and Ambassador Dr. John Ashe at the WTO Opening Ceremony in Hong Kong View photo »

The sixth WTO Ministerial Conference formally opened today with trade and economic ministers from the 149 member countries of the WTO hoping to conclude negotiations for a free trade accord.

"At this very moment, the prospects for an agreement are not very good," said the head of Antigua and Barbuda's delegation, the Honourable Dr. Errol Cort, Minister of Finance and Economy. "There is no indication that WTO members will break the stalemate over cutting subsidies and import tariffs, which has pitted the rich developed countries against the poor developing ones," he added.

During the formal opening ceremony, the delegates heard statements from the Hon. Donald Tsang, Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China; Mr. John C Tsang, Secretary for Commerce, Industry and Technology of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China and the Chairman of the Ministerial Conference; Mr. Pascal Lamy, Director-General of the WTO; H.E. Ms. Amina Mohamed, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Kenya to the WTO and Chairperson of the WTO's General Council; and Dr. Supachai Panitchpakdi, the former Director-General of the WTO and the current Secretary-General of UNCTAD, who spoke on behalf of Mr. Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations.

During the presentation by Director-General Lamy, several protesters chanted anti-WTO slogans from the back of the hall where the opening ceremony was taking place. "The atmosphere surrounding the negotiations has been intense, with thousands of anti-globalization demonstrators marching through the streets of Hong Kong carrying anti-WTO banners and banging drums," said Ambassador Ashe, Antigua and Barbuda's Ambassador to the WTO.

"This meeting is beset by many challenges," said High Commissioner Roberts, Antigua and Barbuda's Deputy Permanent Representative to the WTO. "As a result expectations for a successful outcome are very low," he added.

Elliott Paige, the Minister Counsellor at the OECS Mission to the WTO, observed that a failure for the Hong Kong meeting, coming on the heels of the unsuccessful ministerial meeting in Cancun, Mexico in 2003, would destroy the credibility of the multilateral trading system.

Minister Cort, however, remained hopeful, noting that the negotiators hope to lay the groundwork while in Hong Kong to establish a global trade deal sometime next year. "I hope that, at the end of the day, WTO's member nations, who have debated for years the best way to promote free and fair trade, will resolve to hash out an acceptable agreement given that freer and fairer trade can, according to the World Bank, add some US $300 billion to the global economy," he said.

The current round of WTO talks -- the "Doha Round" that was launched in 2001 in the Doha, the capital of Qatar, was organized to address the concerns of poorer nations. The major issues at the Hong Kong meeting include opening farming and service industries to international competition, and a call by the developed countries for the developing nations to open their telecommunications, tourism and banking sectors to international companies.