However, the SSM proposal available to developing countries continued to be weaker than a similar mechanism available to rich countries to protect the interests of their mostly rich farmers from such cheap imports.

The other main unresolved issues included reduction of huge trade-distorting farm subsidies of the US, especially their cotton subsidies and Washington’s insistence that developing countries should eliminate duties in certain infant and vulnerable industries. Earlier, in a bid to speed up the Doha Round talks, Lamy had last week disbanded the original group of 30-odd ministers and started holding discussions of just seven major countries including India.

But apart from adding to the bitterness that it caused to the members excluded from the core group, this attempt at expeditiously resolving the persisting differences between the developed and the developing world did not bear fruit with Lamy himself admitting that there was no convergence on key issues. Several of the developing, least developed and even developed countries excluded from the chosen group of seven nations expressed apprehensions about being left in the dark.