Ministers from trade powers tried on Sunday to push forward talks for a long-delayed deal to boost global commerce and ease poverty which risks running out of time this year, REPORTED REUTERS. The top negotiators of the United States, the European Union and India held bilateral discussions in London over the weekend, seeking to build on recent contacts by their officials. They were due to fly to Geneva, where the World Trade Organisation (WTO) is based, for further meetings also involving Brazil and lasting until Monday and possibly Tuesday. There was no sign that the four were ready to meet together. The leading members of the WTO are trying to construct a deal on agriculture, the main sticking point so far in the WTO's so-called Doha round of negotiations. EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson met his Indian counterpart Kamal Nath on Saturday and was having discussions with U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab on Sunday. "The meeting with Kamal Nath was useful," Mandelson's spokesman Peter Power said, declining to comment further. Officials have said the core group will need more meetings if they are to achieve a breakthrough that could free up negotiations within the full, 150-member WTO and broaden the scope of the talks to include industrial goods and services. Both the United States and the EU face opposition at home to making more concessions in agriculture. French President Jacques Chirac, the champion of his country's farmers, on Saturday criticised Mandelson for offering too many concessions and of having a "mania" to get a deal. But German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister Tony Blair have strongly backed the negotiations. The meetings in London came a month after the WTO relaunched formally the Doha round after a six-month suspension. Negotiators said a deal needs to be done in 2007 or risk possibly several years of further delay or collapse, undermining confidence in the global trading system. Launched after the 2001 attacks on the United States, the talks are billed as a once-in-a-generation chance to boost the global economy and help lift millions out of poverty. For a deal to be possible, the United States will have to make bigger farm subsidy cuts and the EU will have to go further in cutting agricultural import tariffs. In return, developing states must open their markets to industrial goods and services.
