The European Union (EU), which was earlier reluctant to give date for ending farm subsidies, said that the text issued by the WTO was acceptable, but the draft was not a true success.
"The text is enough to save talks from failure, but the draft is not a true success," Peter Mandelson of EU said.
Indian Commerce Minister Kamal Nath hailed the revised draft of Hong Kong declaration, saying that there was change in the minds of the developed countries.
Addressing a press conference after the release of 'Hong Kong declaration', he said that there was a 'development basket', and things would move in the right direction as contours had been fully set to build upon in the coming months to meet the deadline of Doha Round by the end of 2006.
He said that it could surely be a development round because issues pertaining to LDCs, cotton, non-agriculture market access (Nama) and cut on export subsidies on agriculture were a progress towards right direction.
However, he said that in two months a lot of hard work had to be done to meet the deadline, but it was encouraging that in the HK MC6 course had been set and things had once again started moving towards right direction.
He said that the unity of the developing countries set the pace to the right direction and, unlike in the past, a text prepared by developed countries was not accepted.
It could be said that the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) might not get adequate gains, but at least there was a forward move and they got on the basis of which things could be built, the Indian minister observed.
The African Cotton Producers Association (ACPA) said that unfortunately there had been no concrete proposal on the most essential request, that of elimination of domestic subsidies.
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