GENEVA (Reuters) - Ministers must be ready to compromise in Canada next week on troubled world trade talks in virtually a last chance for a breakthrough before a World Trade Organization summit in September, officials said on Friday.
The ministers from some 25 nations of the World Trade Organization (WTO) meet in Montreal on Monday as the WTO's full membership prepares for the Mexico summit, widely seen as "make or break" for the Doha Round of global free trade negotiations.
The Doha Round, which aims to lower barriers to trade across the board from farm goods to industrial products and services, has missed a series of deadlines since being launched in the Qatari capital in late 2001.
"I expect signals of possible movement and possible trade-offs (in Montreal)," said Uruguay's ambassador Carlos Perez del Castillo, president of the WTO's executive General Council.
"In the absence of such signals of substantial movement...particularly in some key areas like agriculture, our task will be very difficult," he told a news conference.
Many top officials traveled from capitals this week to join permanent trade envoys at talks in Geneva on the Doha Round.
Although officials reported no clear progress on contentious issues, they said they were encouraged by signs the United States and the European Union, key players in trade diplomacy, were seeking common ground, particularly on agriculture.
The United States is allied with major farm exporting countries such as Australia and Brazil in pushing for sharp cuts in import tariffs, an end to export subsidies and sweeping reductions in state aid for farmers.
KEY AREA
But the Europeans, backed by countries such as Japan and Switzerland, say farmers need protection even though recently agreed reforms to EU domestic policy give the bloc some room to maneuver on other other areas of the farm talks.
"This is a key area. If we get movement in agriculture other areas can be unlocked," said Perez del Castillo, flanked at the news conference by WTO chief Supachai Panitchpakdi.
The two officials have drawn up a draft statement for ministers at the September meeting in Cancun, Mexico. It is set to be the subject of intense negotiations in Geneva throughout August.
The draft assumes partial deals can be done on agriculture as well as other thorny issues, including access to cheap medicines for poor states.
To be attended by ministers from the WTO's 146 members, Cancun was intended as "stocktaking" at the halfway point of the trade round, due to wind up by January 1, 2005.
But many trade envoys are openly sceptical about whether that deadline can be met given the continuing wide differences, not just between developed and developing states, but also within the two camps.
Perez del Castillo said progress on agriculture and other areas of interest to developing countries was crucial to the fate of a pet EU project -- to add rules on investment, competition, government procurement and customs procedures or trade facilitation to the WTO regime.
Widely known as the "Singapore" issues, because they were tabled at a WTO ministers' conference there in 1996, they face strong opposition from a number of developing countries, notably India, as well as non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
The Montreal talks are due to last three days.
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