Beijing, July 20: China today expressed concern over the "stagnant progress" and lack of political will of some countries on the implementation of the pledges made at the Doha round of WTO talks. "China is anxious about the stagnant progress and attributes that to some members' lack of enough flexibility and political willingness," the official Xinhua news agency reported quoting Chinese analysts as saying.

"China holds that to reach a series of balanced agreements at an early date is in the interests of all sides concerned and can promote the long-term and stable development of the world economy and trade," the report said.
"The progress so far has been slow and most of the negotiations didn't hit the set goals timely," it said while noting that WTO members are divided by the key negotiation on the agricultural issues. The problems developing countries are most concerned about, such as public health, the implementation of signed contracts, were also not solved on time.

In order to promote the progress of the new negotiations and to realise the "development" theme of this round of talks, China holds that the most important is to settle the development issue concerned by developing country members as a priority, and to strengthen their confidence in the multilateral trade system, the report said.
The WTO's fourth ministerial conference, the organisation's top decision-making body, triggered the new round talks by instituting the Doha development agenda last November. Bureau Report