The World Trade Organisation (WTO) urged the world's poorest nations today to support new global trade talks which they fear will only create bigger profits for rich countries at their expense.
A top WTO official told a conference of Third World trade ministers in Zanzibar that their concerns would form the centre of a proposed round of the free trade talks that rich countries want to hold at a WTO meeting in Doha, Qatar in November.
"We need your support to ensure that Doha is successful and that a new round of talks with development at its core is launched", Deputy Secretary General Oblasse Ouedraogo told the conference.
Ministers from among the 49 states classified by the United Nations as Least Developed Countries (LDC) meeting on the Indian Ocean Island off East Africa say they have borne the brunt of the harm of globalisation.
The Group of Seven club of the wealthiest nations pledged at a weekend summit in Genoa, Italy, to push for a new round of trade talks at the next WTO meeting in Doha.
Poor nations fear more attempts to remove trade barriers will only weaken their economies further, but Mr Ouedraogo said a new round of WTO talks was the best way the poor could negotiate better terms of trade.
"A new round will include development, will offer an opportunity to address concerns of LDC", Mr Ouedraogo said.But the reaction of Tanzanian Trade Minister Mr Iddi Simba, who chaired the one-day Zanzibar meeting, echoed the scepticism felt by poor nations as diverse as the tiny central African state of Burundi to impoverished Bangladesh.
"Most of us are not ready, psychologically, materially and technically, for a new round," Mr Simba said.
The weekend summit of the G7 - Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States - disappointed many poor countries by failing to produce new debt relief plans.