Modest outcome at Hong Kong Ministerial meeting

If liberalisation of international trade was the objective of the delegates, there could not have been a more appropriate setting. Unfortunately, most delegates did not preach, what many of them practised. Hong Kong has been a shoppers’ paradise for four decades now. For many delegates it was an opportunity to shop for electronics, or clothes, or toy, or anything under the sun, and benefit from Hong Kong’s free trade policy. Delegates from around the world wanted to take back to their families and friends, the goodies, access to which were denied to their own countrymen because of restrictive trade policies of their own government.