KHARTOUM, Jan. 20 (Xinhuanet) -- International and regional officials on Friday urged African countries to adopt a united stance when seeking to increase their share in the international trade, a crucial issue for development of the world's poorest continent.

    Speaking ahead of a summit of African leaders at the Sudanese capital Khartoum, the officials said while the past year has seen Africa's development needs on the global agenda, much more remains to be done to tackle challenges.

    "It is important for the international community to live up to its commitments in aid delivery and ensure the predictability of resources for African countries," said Abdoulie Janneh, the United Nations Under Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA).

    "We now must strive to ensure that the momentum generated by that attention is now allowed to dissipate and that concrete results accrue from it," he told the 8th ordinary session of the AU executive council, which prepares for the summit of African leaders early next week.

    He said institutional partnership between the ECA under the UN and the African Union (AU), the 53-nation regional bloc, should be strengthened to avoid duality toward overcoming the issues of peace and security, development and increasing the share of Africa in the international trade.

    Janneh said the Doha round negotiations last month in Hong Kongonce again did not go as well as African countries had expected even though some modest gains were made.

    "The challenge will be to secure those gains and build on them as Africa seeks its rightful share of trade and a leveling of the playing field," he said.

    Fearing they could be further marginalized in current international trade, African countries, most of whose economies rely on farm production, have demanded developed countries to reduce subsidies for their own industries.

    About 150,000 Africans are employed by cotton industry, whose export accounts for 17 percent of the world's total. Cotton planting is a main source of income of over 20 million people in 33 cotton-producing countries across Africa.

    However, cotton subsidies provided by the U.S. government, totaling 14.8 billion U.S. dollars between 1999 and 2003, has caused the drop of cotton price in international market, which further devastate the interest of African cotton growers.

    Janneh said the Hong Kong meeting has agreed that there will bean end to cotton export subsidies by 2006 and that there will be duty and quota free access for cotton exports from developing countries into developed country markets as from the beginning of the implementation period for the Doha agreements.

    AU's role as the coordinator of Africa's positions on trade issues in multilateral trade negotiations should be strengthened, he said. Enditem