World Trade Organisation (WTO) members "shall provide duty-free and quota-free market access for at least 97 percent of product originating from LDCs (least developed countries)," said the text, debated by ministers informally overnight, released on the final day of a WTO conference in Hong Kong.

The trade ministers also agreed to eliminate farm export subsidies by 2013 and provide special breaks for the poorest nations.

The reductions on tariffs and quotas would begin by 2008 or after an overall Doha round framework agreement is completed, the text said.

"Zero to 97 percent is very good," said Indian Trade Minister Kamal Nath.

Bangladesh, Zambia, Cambodia and other impoverished countries had initially demanded an across-the-board to zero reduction on all their export goods in all of the WTO's 149 member countries.

The agreement is still subject to a unified trade liberalisation deal in the Doha Round of trade talks that has yet to be formally approved.

"I'm very sure that we will get to the end of the round because our momentum will only get stronger," Nath said of the negotiations that first began in 2003 and are scheduled to conclude next year.

The proposed new rules would apply to all developed nations but would exempt developing countries such as Pakistan or Malaysia if they were not "in a position" to cut import tariffs.

However, concerns voiced by Japan on rice and the United States on its powerful textiles industry means that certain products can be selectively excluded.

Negotiators had been counting on stitching up an agreement for 32 of the world's poorest countries, with the trade package initially seen as having the best prospects of being endorsed by member nations.

FARM SUBSIDIES
Trade ministers signed up yesterday to a compromise deal clearing the way to a global trade deal in 2006, agreeing to cut farm trade export subsidies in eight years and provide special breaks for the poorest nations.

A draft statement issued at WTO talks approved a European Union plan for agricultural export subsidies to be scrapped by 2013. The United States and key developing nations had been pushing for 2010.

Anti-poverty campaigners however condemned the draft agreement as a betrayal of the poor, but ministers from the main trading blocs welcomed it as at least a modest step forward.

"We agree to ensure the parallel elimination of all forms of export subsidies and disciplines on all export measures ... by the end of 2013," said the draft, which was to go before a plenary session for approval later Sunday.

EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said the text was "acceptable" after other countries had accepted the EU compromise on the date.

"We have demanded and received equivalent movement from the other countries. While the outcome of Hong Kong is not a great success, this move of ours is enough to save it from failure."

The United States in turn welcomed the text, saying it had come to Hong Kong to build a solid platform to move forward global trade liberalisation.

Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said the Group of 20 major developing countries also accepted the compromise.

Anti-poverty campaigners were not so pleased, however. "This is not a deal, it's a fraud," the head of ActionAid's trade justice campaign Aftab Alam Khan told AFP.

Oxfam's trade campaign chief Phil Bloomer said rich countries had conceded minimal access to their agricultural markets while opening up the sensitive industrial and services sectors of developing nations.