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DAVOS, Jan 28: WTO chief Pascal Lamy and ministers from 19 nations agreed on a detailed timeline Saturday to smooth progress over global trade talks, which one participant said was entering its "end game", reports AFP.
After the first political gathering since the full ministerial conference of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in Hong Kong last month, Lamy said about 40 per cent of a landmark deal on breaking down barriers to commerce still needed to be secured by the agreed deadline of the end of the year.
"There was a shared but sober realisation of what needs to be done," Lamy told journalists.
"Nobody has questioned this deadline," he added. "They all know they have to move."
Some of the most contentious issues, opening up markets for farm trade, as well as industrial goods and services, are still on the table.
"We are entering the end game period, but we will be successful," Swiss Economy Minister Joseph Deiss, who chaired the informal meeting, said in the Swiss mountain resort of Davos.
The ministers set out a timetable of intermediate steps that need to be completed on the way to two key meetings in April and July that were agreed on in Hong Kong, he added.
Full details were not made available because the rest of the WTO's 149 members still have to examine them.
Earlier reports by agencies adds: Trade ministers from some of the world's biggest economies said they have a long way to go to reach a global trade agreement after two days of talks did little to narrow their differences, report agencies.
Ministers from Europe, the US, Brazil, India and about 15 other countries ended talks in Davos, Switzerland pledging to step up their efforts to complete an accord by year end.
"We are entering the end game,'' Joseph Deiss, Switzerland's economics minister, said after hosting meetings on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos. "The work to be done this year is huge.''
At stake is an agreement to open up markets in agriculture and industrial products and services like banking. The World Bank reckons such a pact could pump $96 billion into the global economy and lift millions of people out of poverty.
The talks have stalled over emerging markets' demand for cuts in agricultural subsidies and the insistence by the U.S. and Europe for greater access for industrial goods and services.
There's been no movement since the World Trade Organisation's 149 members last month set a deadline of April 30 to reach the outlines of a global deal. The aim is to finish the talks before the July 2007 end of U.S. President George W. Bush's authority to get swift congressional consideration.
In an attempt to inject fresh momentum into the so-called Doha Round, the officials released a four-page timetable listing decisions that need to be made with the aim of concluding negotiations by the end of the year.
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