Developing countries have stressed on evolving a high-level cohesion among themselves for achieving development objectives at the ongoing WTO negotiations.

Trade representatives of developing countries including Mexico, Cuba, Egypt, Nigeria, Zambia, Pakistan and China among others favoured coalition-building initiative for fulfilling development goals of Doha agenda at a meeting convened by India and serviced by UNCTAD in Geneva recently.

The meeting chaired by India and addressed by Rubens Ricupero, secretary general of UNCTAD and Supachai Panitchpakdi, director general of WTO underlined the need for a coordinated approach amongst themselves and a clear strategy in respect of their offensive and defensive interests along with indentification of various options in different negotiating scenarios.

Calling for the progress on both the process and substance of negotiations, the participants proposed categorisation of issues into three pillars to ensure success of Cancun.

The three pillars identified are the core issues of market access, development issues raised by developing countries and issues raised by developed countries, an official release said.