Workers' rights
Meanwhile, in another, less auspicious meeting room - the Hong Kong social services building - international trade unionists were telling the boss of the WTO, Pascal Lamy, that workers rights should be at the centre of any attempt to help the world's poor. Guy Ryder, the head of the International Trade Union Confederation, said that workers would only see the benefits of globalisation if there were core labour standards which were enforced to ensure that workers in poor countries were not exploited.
But Mr Lamy said - with some regret - that developing countries had rejected any inclusion of labour issues in this round of trade talks because they feared it would become an excuse for protectionism by the rich countries, who would try to block any imports made by cheaper labour.
However, he acknowledged that opening up markets did produce losers as well as winners, although he argued that overall free trade creates rather than destroys jobs.
But he said that the losers should be compensated.
While that could be done by national governments in the rich nations, it was not always possible to do so in poor countries, he admitted.
