Trade ministers from 25 countries will meet in Australia next week for an informal World Trade Organisation (WTO) mini-summit expected to be dogged by thousands of anti-globalisation protestors.
The November 14-15 meeting, the first by global trade ministers since the launch of the Doha round of trade talks last year, will aim to lock in commitments to looming deadlines and to smooth the way to the next full WTO conference in Mexico.
Australian authorities, who have already switched the meetings from the leafy harbourside suburb of Double Bay to the more secure Sydney Olympic Park, are geared up for trouble.
Anti-globalisation demonstrators who have disrupted events such as this around the world in recent years have promised to march, saying the free trade agenda promoted by rich nations does not protect the world's poor from exploitation.
"It is going to be a significant security effort," Australian Trade Minister Mark Vaile said. The Sydney meeting would not reach firm agreements but would focus on developing country issues and on smoothing political differences on the way to the next full ministerial conference in Cancun, Mexico, next September, Vaile said.
Special emphasis will be placed on a push for economic access to pharmaceuticals for the world's poor ahead of a December deadline for agreement in the Geneva-based WTO, he said.
This involved thorny issues of production of cheap medicines in developing countries and intellectual property rights held by global drug giants.
"It's imperative that we've got to deal with it (in Sydney) next week...We can create the environment for our delegations to get that decision out by December... in Geneva," Vaile said.
The meeting will be attended by WTO director-general Supachai Panitchpakdi, US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick and Japan's Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Takeo Hiranuma.
There will also be ministers from China, Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, New Zealand, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, the European Union, Switzerland, India, and six African countries including South Africa. The first item on Friday will be trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights (TRIPS) and medicines for developing nations, especially to combat tuberculosis and HIV/Aids.
Farm trade is also on the agenda, although breakthroughs are not seen in the challenge by Australia and other agricultural exporters to subsidies and protectionism in Europe and elsewhere. Australia would act as a leader for concerns by developing countries, with their substantial block of WTO votes, over free access to markets for farm products, Vaile said.
The 25 countries which will attend the mini-summit collectively account for around 80 per cent of world trade.
Seventeen will be developing countries. Vaile accused anti-globalisation protestors of missing the point that free trade was in the interest of developing nations. "Many people have the misconception that this is a meeting of big business, of the corporations that run the world. It is not," he said.
New South Wales Police Minister Michael Costa said last month that at least 10,000 demonstrators appeared likely to bring baseball bats, body armour and marbles to disrupt the meetings.