The trade dispute between rich and poor nations includes, inter alia, the issues of market accessibility as well as price. Developed countries are pouring in huge subsidies to protect the interest of their farmers and thereby barring similar products to enter their markets from the LDC.

Bangladesh, as a coordinator of 49 LDCs in the upcoming Cancun meet of the WTO, will urge richer nations to concede to LDC demand for withdrawing farm subsidies in their respective countries.

The share of LDC in the global trade is 0.4 per cent although they represent 11 per cent of global population. Rich nations' decision to curtail farm subsidies might go a long way toward creating an ambience to allow agricultural goods from the LDC to compete with similar products of richer nations.

Under the IMF prodding, the LDC had sacrificed a lot over the last decade to prepare their economies to meet the challenges of globalisation. The Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) has brought miseries to millions of workers due to the LDC's decision not to subsidise money- losing enterprises,although many of those enterprises were deemed as national institutions of some sort. The closure of the Adamjee Jute Mills is one such instance in our country.

The LDC also had to adapt to the changing trading environment ushered in by the geopolitical flux in many parts of the world. The preceding decade had witnessed the closure of many traditional industries in the LDC. The compensation for such losses can come through a number of ways, including the developed countries' willingness to allow free movement of labour from the LDC, and creating avenues to facilitate access of LDC agro-products into developed market by removing tariff and non tariff barriers.

LDC and agriculture being almost synonymous, and agriculture accounting for a substantial portion of the GDP of the LDC, major agricultural concessions by the richer nations will spur growth in the agro-sector of the LDC.The developed nations must realise that farm subsidy acts as a non-tariff barrier. Conceptually, it is a protectionist approach which is an antithesis to the free trading paradigm.

Study reveals a net loss of $24 billion a year by the LDC due to the developed countries' farm subsidy and other measures that tantamount to protectionism. The LDC cannot afford to conduct free trading when protectionism, covert or overt, in the developed world keeps undercutting the gains made by poor nations in many other fields. It's simply a matter of fairness and equity and it must be addrressed.