By Tom Murphy
The Associated Press

SAO PAULO, Brazil - Uganda's president and the president-elect of the Dominican Republic insisted Wednesday that developing countries must receive social benefits from free trade instead of simply opening Third World markets to multinational corporations.

Addressing delegates at a 180-nation U.N. trade and development conference, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said poor countries must be assured better market access to developed economies and financing from their rich counterparts for education and infrastructure improvements.

"What we need is a program of affirmative action in trade to give Africa time to catch up," Museveni said.

Market access is a key issue in ongoing talks to liberalize trade around the world, but many delegates at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development say poor countries should not drop trade barriers unless rich countries commit to helping the developing world eliminate poverty.

"We cannot sanction a trading system that produces advantages for some and adversities for others," Museveni said.

Negotiators for the 147-nation World Trade Organization are trying to reach a framework by July for a landmark trade deal that would slash subsidies, tariffs and other barriers for rich and poor countries alike.

UNCTAD, which meets every four years, does not have the power of the WTO to negotiate and enforce treaties. But the two groups cover many of the same issues.

President-elect Leonel Fernandez of the Dominican Republic said developing countries must build better trading relationships among themselves and with the world's most industrialized nations.

But Fernandez, who takes office Aug. 16, said poor countries can't depend entirely on aid or trade from rich nations to solve all of the Third World's problems.

Latin American countries, he said, must open up their markets to one another by reducing tariffs, and find a way to cooperate more to help the region's governments improve business conditions and raise living standards.