“Realistic, credible and achievable targets” were needed to generate positive results for the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO’s) stalled Doha round by year-end, director-general Pascal Lamy said on Tuesday, adding that least developed countries (LDCs) should be prioritised in the process.

Addressing an informal meeting of the Trade Negotiations Committee, Lamy said progress should be made on the LDC duty-free, quota-free access agreement, the services waiver and the so-called ‘cotton dossier’, which would halt subsidies for cotton farmers in the US.

South Africa’s Minister of Trade and Industry Dr Rob Davies echoed these sentiments on Monday, when he said that the Doha negotiations’ fundamental focus should be to deliver something for the LDC. Davies also said that South Africa’s position was that “the only kind of round worth concluding must be developmental”, which the world was not yet ready to deliver.

However, Lamy advocated for movement on the LDCs topics by December, but said there were a number of issues that could be added to the LDC-specific issues. These included issues such as market access in nonagricultural markets access, agriculture and services, trade remedies and trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights, which would be looked into beyond the eighth WTO Ministerial Conference, in December.

With some claims and criticism pointing to a “failing” Doha development agenda, Lamy outlined the need to avoid a lengthy negotiation about the issues to be negotiated, or “we could find ourselves going round in circles.”

He pointed out that consultations with stakeholders over the last few weeks suggested that “nobody wanted to drop the Doha mandate”, or to see its specific issues of interest disappear from the mandate.