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DHAKA, Friday (AFP) Officials from 38 of the world's least-developed countries (LDCs) will meet in Bangladesh at the weekend to hammer out a common strategy ahead of the WTO ministerial meeting in Mexico.

Of the 38 countries participating in the three-day meeting in Dhaka, which opens Saturday, 23 will be represented by their ministers making it the largest such gathering in 10 years, officials said.

Bangladeshi Prime Minister Khaleda Zia will address the conference on the closing day when it will issue a "Dhaka Declaration."

The World Trade Organisation (WTO) is holding a ministerial conference on September 10-14 in the Mexican resort of Cancun to follow up a similar meeting in November 2001 in the Qatari capital Doha.

"It is a very, very difficult job to integrate the LDCs in the multilateral trading system as different countries are at different stages of development," said Bangladeshi Commerce Minister Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury.

"Many proposals are there and being discussed and Bangladesh, as the coordinator, will be trying to take the agenda forward."

"The market is the most conspicuous issue along with capacity building and anti-dumping matters that will have to be hammered out if the LDCs want an edge at the Cancun meeting," a senior commerce ministry official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

He said market-related issues such as duty and quota free access of goods from the LDCs to the developing world would be high on the agenda.

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