The fifth Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO) concluded in Cancun , Mexico Sunday afternoon without any agreement reached between members.

A ministerial statement, released by the WTO secretariat following the conclusion of the five-day meeting, said officials will continue working on outstanding issues with a "renewed sense of urgency and purpose."

A meeting of the General Council at the senior official level will be convened no later than Dec. 15 this year to take the action "necessary at that stage to enable us to move towards a successful and timely conclusion of the negotiations," said the statement.

Delegates from Kenya and some other developing members said earlier that the meeting collapsed because of a huge gap in the positions between developed members and developing ones.

One concrete result was that Cambodia and Nepal acceded to the WTO as the first two least-developed countries since the WTO was established in 1995.

Civil society Actionaid blamed the rich countries for the failure to come to any agreement.

"The rich countries have only looked after their own interests and clearly never had any attention of offering anything of real benefit to developing countries," said Adriano Campolina Soares, head of Actionaid's international campaign.

The sixth WTO ministerial meeting will be held in Hong Kong, China.

(Xinhua News Agency September 15, 2003)