Top negotiators from the European Union and Brazil said on Saturday they had made progress in trying to narrow their differences that are blocking the push for a new world trade deal, Reuters reported. EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson and Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim met in Rome for over four hours and said their talks had been "useful" although there was no breakthrough. Mandelson and Amorim said they wanted to broaden their discussions to again include other ministers from World Trade Organisation (WTO) member countries. "Judging by what we have done this morning, further discussion is very useful and I think that extending the discussion will be more useful still," Mandelson told reporters. Amorim said the meeting was "productive in many respects". Earlier this week, trade negotiators from around the world conceded that their differences were still too deep for them to settle on a blueprint for a new WTO round when the organisation's nearly 150 members meet next month in Hong Kong. The meeting between Dec. 13 and 18 was previously billed as a deadline for reaching the outline plan, four years after the round was launched to boost the global economy and help farmers in some of the world's poorest countries. --More 2241 Local Time 1941 GMT
