While the most recent information from Geneva seems to indicate that it will not be possible to provide ministers with a comprehensive trade agreement text, including terms and conditions, at the Hong Kong meeting, this Ministerial Conference, the highest WTO body, does however remain a crucial step in the Doha cycle, which began in Qatar in 2001.

Life-cycle analysis is a tool used for compiling and evaluating inputs and outputs, potential environmental impacts of a product across its entire life, from extraction of resources to production of material, the products itself, its use, and its management after it is discarded, either by reuse, recycling, or final disposal.

52. Deplores the decision to launch a new comprehensive trade round without a proper assessment of the social and environmental impact of existing trade regimes and especially of the effects of trade liberalisation in the developing countries;

8. Is convinced that an open, multilateral trading system complemented by technical assistance can best meet the needs of developing countries for sustainable economic development; understands the developing countries' reluctance to assume further obligations in the framework of a new round; asks the WTO therefore to work on an agenda for economic and social development, especially a work programme to boost the capacity of develo ...[+++]ping countries to benefit from international trade, including measures to address health and education and debt problems, to ensure that the OECD poverty targets for 2015 are met, to boost infrastructure, and to curb the international arms trade; advocates the idea of 'opt-out-solutions' for developing countries, linking their economic progress with progressive application of the new set of WTO rules on investment and competition;

Concerning WTO, Ministers stressed the importance of maintaining the momentum towards the launch of a new comprehensive round based on a balanced agenda that adequately contemplates the interests of all members of the multilateral trading system.

VIII. WITH RESPECT TO ACCESS TO THIRD COUNTRY MARKETS 1. underlines the importance of the third-countries market to the pharmaceutical industry of the European Union, which remains the principal world centre for the production and export of medicinal products; 2. considers that, strengthened by the "acquis communautaire" in this sector, the European Union should endeavour to improve the conditions for access to third-country markets for medicinal products invented and developed by the European pharmaceutical industry; 3. points out that the very high degree of regulation in the pharmaceutical sector means that it is also subject to a considerable number of barriers to trade, which often force the pharmaceutical industry to repeat tests o ...[+++]n medicinal products and checking operations; 4. notes the efforts made in the context of the International Conference on Harmonization (ICH) with regard to harmonizing statutory requirements for pharmaceuticals and invites the Commission to submit a report to the Council on the results achieved after the first round of conferences and the aims to be set for the continuation of the proceedings; 5. encourages the Commission to continue the negotiations now under way on mutual recognition agreements relating to inspection and control of medicinal products, in particular with regard to equivalence of good manufacturing practice, with the Union's trading partners; 6. recalls the importance of intellectual property rights for the pharmaceutical industry and the crucial part played by effective, complete and respected protection of these rights in ensuring financing for ever more costly innovative research; 7. encourages the fight against fraud and asks the Commission and the Member States to cooperate with the appropriate bodies at international level to combat counterfeiting and ensure the implementation of the agreement on trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights (TRIPs) concluded within the GATT framework; IX. FIN ...