After two days of talks among ACP trade ministers in Brussels, the grouping appointed Botswana's Trade and Industry Minister Jacob Nkate to represent it at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) meeting in Cancun, Mexico on September 10-14.

In a 14-page declaration, the ACP -- which includes some of the world's poorest nations -- called for the worlds richest trading powers to slash tariffs and export subsidies while ensuring proper market access to its goods, mainly agricultural commodities and textiles.

Expressing concern at the WTO's failure so far to agree on how to handle talks on liberalizing farm trade, the declaration said: "Agriculture is of critical importance to the economic development of ACP states and holds the potential to lift millions of people out of poverty.

"Progress in the agricultural negotiations is essential for the successful conclusion of the Doha Work Programme."

The latest round of global free-trade talks has made little progress since being launched in 2001 in the Qatari capital Doha, notably because of discord between the European Union and United States.

Following a WTO ministerial meeting in Montreal this week, the EU's executive Commission predicted "some days and weeks of hard, hard work before Cancun".

Of particular concern to the ACP nations are barriers in the rich world to their economic mainstays, such as cotton, and industrial tariffs that the World Bank says keeps the world's poorest countries over-reliant on volatile commodities.

Raw sugar exports from ACP countries enjoy preferable access to the EU, but that regime has now been challenged at the WTO by Australia, Brazil and Thailand.

The trade ministers' declaration warned that if upheld by WTO arbitrators, the complaint "would result in serious adverse effects on the livelihood of many farmers and serious political, economic and social problems in the ACP states concerned".