HONG KONG, December 13, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - World trade ministers launched a fresh bid Tuesday, December 13, to salvage free trade negotiations amid little hope for major headway, as thousands of protesters marched on the streets to denounce the World Trade Organization (WTO) as an enemy of the poor.

Ministers from 149 countries will spend the next six days trying to galvanize the Doha Round of trade liberalization negotiations, currently deadlocked in sharp regional disputes over agricultural subsidies and import tariffs, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Noting the difficulties ahead, WTO Director General Pascal Lamy told the conference: "Let us combine our hopes and strengths to advance the negotiations so that they can be completed in 2006."

"Taking a bit of risk, a calculated risk ... will mean a chance for a level playing field for free and fair trade, in short for development," he said.

UN chief Kofi Annan told the gathering that they must make real progress on the Doha trade round at their six-day meeting or disappoint the millions who "yearn to lift themselves out of poverty".

The WTO, which is struggling to conclude market-opening negotiations launched four years ago in the Qatari capital Doha, is routinely denounced by activists who accuse it of being hostile to the poor.

Another WTO conference is expected to be called around March in hopes that the Doha Round can be implemented by the end of 2006, when the talks must be concluded.

An Australian trade official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there was a mood of uncertainty at the conference.

"We've heard nothing so far that suggests we're going to make a major breakthrough."

In an interview with the BBC, European Union Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson also dampened prospects for a deal.

"We are not going to do what we initially hoped we would do in Hong Kong but nor need it be a disaster," he said.

Key to hopes of the world's developing nations would be a breakthrough deal to cut the massive subsidies paid by developed nations to their farmers as well as an agreement to slash agricultural import duties.

"They are distorting agriculture and they should remedy that," Indian Commerce Minister Kamal Nath said, echoing a steady stream of criticism of the European Union’s stand on farm trade.

But the EU, which fears that lowering tariffs across the board would harm the poorest countries that already have preferential access to EU markets, said Monday it would not make further offers on farm trade.

Tension between the United States and the euro bloc burst into the open as the meeting got under way, with Mandelson calling for "radical reform" to the US system of food aid for developing nations, Reuters reported.

"Food aid for poor countries and emergency relief can be a tool to advance development and for humanitarian relief," Mandelson told a news conference.

"But the US program is designed to give support to US agricultural producers."

Anti-WTO protesters clash with police. (Reuters).

About 20 demonstrators shouted slogans and waved signs hostile to the WTO as Lamy was addressing the opening session of the body's ministerial meeting in Hong Kong.

"The WTO kills farmers" and "No to the WTO" read signs brandished by the protesters clustered in the rear of the meeting hall.

Officials said they quickly left the hall without incident.

Confronting a huge security operation, with Hong Kong authorities determined to prevent a repetition of violence that has rocked previous WTO gatherings, several thousand demonstrators surged into the streets of the city.

Under banners that read "WTO Go to Hell", "Junk the WTO" and "Fair Trade For All", protesters called for the dissolution of the world body.

"The WTO is driving us to our deaths," one Korean protester yelled, reported Reuters.

Nine people, including two police officers, were slightly injured as police used a skin-irritant spray to force back a group of protesters.

But there was none of the intense violence seen during the last WTO meetings in Cancun and Seattle.