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Talks to resume next month with agricultural subsidies topping the agenda

GENEVA, Switzerland - 08/29/07 - Time is running out on efforts to revive the deadlocked six year-old Doha Round of negotiations aimed at reducing barriers to global commerce, according to World Trade Organization chief Pascal Lamy.

"These negotiations have been the focus of our work over the past year and the time remaining in which to conclude [the talks] runs short," said Lamy in the foreword to the WTO's recently released annual report.

Chief negotiators put forward compromise proposals to the group's membership last month in two crucial and hard-fought areas in the talks, agriculture and industrial goods, in an attempt to break the deadlock.

They had asked trading nations to mull over the proposals during a summer break and to return to Geneva next month for intensive negotiations to seal an agreement.

Lamy said a deal would send "a much needed message of confidence to governments, economic agents and the public" and would reinforce the foundations of the global economy.

"If we are to conclude these negotiations in the near future, as the WTO members have pledged to do," he said, "we will need to make significant progress as soon as possible in the crucial areas of agriculture subsidies, tariffs on agriculture and industrial products."

The Doha Round was launched in the capital of Qatar in 2001 and aim to cut entirely or significantly reduce subsidies and import duties to help developing nations take advantage of expanding global trade.

The WTO's 151 member countries are at odds over the extent of new cuts in barriers to trade in agriculture, industrial goods, and services amid what some assert are cross-cutting disagreements between developed and under-developed countries over the concessions on the negotiating table.

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