Japan will provide $10 billion in trade-related aid to least-developed countries over three years, the government said on Friday, in a bid to help give momentum to global trade negotiations, Reuters reported. In an aid package unveiled ahead of World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks in Hong Kong next week, Japan also said it would provide duty-free, quota-free market access for "essentially all products" originating from least-developed countries (LDCs). "This is just a start. This is a package aimed at the success of the Doha round," Farm Minister Shoichi Nakagawa told a news conference. The number of LDC products Japan currently provides duty-free preferential treatment to, amounts to roughly 86 percent, Kyodo news agency said. The package was put together as part of a previous Japanese pledge to add $10 billion to its overseas aid over the next five years that was announced at a summit of Group of Eight industrialised nations in Gleneagles, Scotland in July. Besides increasing preferential market access for LDCs, Japan will employ soft loans, grant aid and technical help to improve trade, production and distribution infrastructure as well as to train personnel, the government said in a statement.
