JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - The world's richest nations should allow duty- and quota-free access to all products from poor countries without demanding anything back as part of a deal on global trade, South Africa said on Thursday.

Mpahlwa's comments came ahead of December's meeting of the 148 members of the

 World Trade Organization in Hong Kong, where they must approve a blueprint for a new trade pact that could boost the world economy and cut poverty.

G8 countries have publicly committed themselves to increasing aid, cutting debt, encouraging foreign direct investment and funding campaigns against

 AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis to help Africa grow.

Mpahlwa said Africans were united in demands they wanted met in Hong Kong, which included the removal of farm subsidies by rich governments by 2010. They sought a deadline of 2006 for an end to cotton subsidies.

He said Africa did not want to be made to pay the price for righting the imbalances in global trade.

"Making the WTO deliver for Africa is critical. Correcting the profound imbalances in agricultural trade is a central element of this objective," Mpahlwa told reporters.

"Developing countries should not be expected to pay for the removal of trade-distorting and anti-development subsidies on agricultural products with over-ambitious and costly market access concessions in industrial products," he said.

Africans wanted financial assistance for countries that faced adjustment costs in a new trade era to diversify their economies to become more competitive, Mpahlwa said.

"It will be vital to facilitate exports of African services into developed country markets. This will include providing better access for temporary movement of African workers and outsourcing."

Technical proposals by the United States on farm issues had given impetus to the negotiations, but Africans saw it as insufficient and more needed to be done, he said.

"Our assessment is that the main challenge to moving the agricultural negotiations forward lies squarely with the

 European Union," he said.

Mpahlwa said Africa's collective challenge was to prepare a negotiating position that was technically and politically defensible and to ensure that Hong Kong did not end in failure.

"We are cautiously optimistic that we can achieve success in Hong Kong. If we don't manage to achieve success in Hong Kong, there will be very serious consequences, particularly for developing countries," Mpahlwa said.

"It means developed countries will continue to subsidize their farm products and other practices that disadvantage the developing world, particularly Africa," he said.