Two years later, key WTO members such as the United States and the European Union remain deeply divided over how to dismantle farm support programmes in developed nations. Hong Kong will be hoping negotiations next week will result in a final agreement by the end of 2006.

'The 'Hong Kong package' or the 'Hong Kong agreement' ... it has a nice ring to it,' explains Charles Li Kui-wai, associate professor at City University's department of economics and finance. 'By the end of the meeting, if there is an agreement, then Hong Kong will go down as a major event in WTO history.'

Providing a venue for the meeting is perhaps more important than what Hong Kong stands to gain from the negotiating table, he argues.

'Much of the negotiations have nothing to do with Hong Kong's economy, because Hong Kong is so open ... it's always the other economies that impose conditions for Hong Kong.'

With no direct interest in agriculture, Hong Kong is in a good position to act as a negotiating middle-man, says Nicholas Brooke, chairman of the Hong Kong Coalition of Service Industries.

'If there was a place where you could progress a deal ... it's a venue like Hong Kong. If that can be bedded down in a sensible way, everything else falls into place quite easily,' he said. 'The gathering will stand or fall on what solution evolves on the agricultural front.'

Much of the press of late has been pessimistic of a meaningful agreement.

Former WTO director-general Mike Moore, for example, recently stated that he believes the Hong Kong meeting is unlikely to end in a final agreement, but should not collapse like the previous summit in Cancun.

As the eyes of the world turn to the city, Hong Kong's reputation will rely on how it handles a logistical event such as WTO, and in particular the expected protests.

'The primary question is why Hong Kong decided to host it,' says Dr Li.

The hope for the government would be that its track record with this meeting will augur well for future events on a similar scale.

A formal offer to host the event was made by the Hong Kong government in 2003, and in October of that year, the WTO General Council in Geneva accepted its bid.

The cost of hosting the event has been put at around $250 million, the bulk of the money being spent on the provision of a venue and facilities, information technology, security arrangements, transport and a hospitality programme.

Behind the conference doors, the stakes for Hong Kong are either high or cursory, depending on who you talk to.

While the core debate is expected to focus on agriculture, the most pertinent area for Hong Kong is services. The WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) requires members to negotiate on specific issues, enter into successive rounds of negotiations and progressively liberalise trade in services.

Members have been committed to a round of negotiations since 2000, exchanging bilateral initial requests since June 2002. Up to October 2003, 39 members had submitted initial offers, including Hong Kong. By this year, the figure was around 70.

Countries could revise these offers up to May this year, and an unofficial deadline of the end of 2006 has been imposed.

The areas covered by the members range from accountancy, legal, financial, consulting and advertising services to transport, tourism and logistics.

Hong Kong has already found itself under fire, however, for not disclosing its requests for further opening of markets to other WTO members.

In July this year, Director-General of Trade and Industry Raymond Young Lap-moon said these requests involve 'commercial sensitivity'.

'Besides, to disclose our requests in full at this stage may limit the strategies that we can deploy during the negotiation process and in turn jeopardise the overall interests of Hong Kong,' he explained.

According to Mr Brooke, Hong Kong's agenda is to gain access and a more level playing field in markets that are either closed to it or very difficult. This includes employment restrictions or very high licence fees, for example.

'There's still an awful lot of markets where it's not a level playing field,' he explains. Prime targets are within the region.

One area of particular difficulty is professional services, he notes. 'We are finding it very difficult breaking into other markets,' he says, while admitting it is a double-edged sword, with barriers of entry in Hong Kong - for example, its legal profession - making it hard for other countries to gain access.

'My line with professions is that we need to be seen to be more flexible if we expect people to accommodate us,' he says.

'There's a lot of talent moving into mainland China ... it's in our interest to be more responsive and responsible.'

Logistics is also an area of particular interest. Hong Kong, for example, is among a group of countries pushing for further liberalisation offers from governments.

The government has itself admitted that in the services sector the quality of offers on the table is 'far from satisfactory', and largely fails to meet member expectations.

Much discussion will thus focus on making the process of offers more qualitative, and better defining the parameters. It is also expected that there will be some new guidelines on rule-making drafted during the ministerial meeting.

Hong Kong's trade accounts for almost three times its GDP, giving it a strong interest in further liberalisation generally. It is this more sweeping benefit from trade negotiations that some observers believe Hong Kong's core interest in the upcoming meeting lies.

'Hong Kong lives and dies on open trade,' says Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce chief economist David O'Rear. 'This is life-threatening for Hong Kong. If you don't have progress towards the next level of liberalised trade, we are going to get broken up into regional blocs.'

One of the outcomes members are hoping for by the end of this ministerial meeting is an agreement on how to intensify services negotiations, as well as significant progress in the rules negotiations, including trade facilitation.

Hong Kong has also identified non-agricultural market access as a priority area, with tariff concessions paramount. WTO members argue that certain tariffs continue to restrict trade, particularly on exports of developing countries.

As Stephen Cheung Yan-leung, a member of the Hong Kong Committee for Pacific Economic Co-operation, says: 'For this kind of ministerial meeting, I think Hong Kong's interest is pushing for freer trade and further trade liberalisation. Ninety-four per cent of our economy is in services ... so if there is more liberalisation, that would be advantageous for Hong Kong's economy.'

Negotiations on trade facilitation started in October last year, with emphasis on WTO provisions on the freedom of transit, import and export processes and transparency of trade regulations.

The talks, however, look far from being easy. This week, for example, a group of five Southeast Asian nations made an alternative proposal for discussions on liberalising services.

A draft submitted by Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand challenges a large part of the report on services included by WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy in his text for Hong Kong.

EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson has moreover already warned that little progress has been seen in the services negotiations.

Recently, the body has argued for a minimum benchmark for liberalisation in services that all countries would have to meet.

Such a move is, however, unpopular among developing nations.