WTO chief warns trading nations to bridge differences by October

World Trade Organisation chief Supachai Panitchpakdi warned member countries to bridge their differences by October if they want to complete almost four years of stumbling negotiations to free up global commerce.

Trading nations are facing the last chance to energize the Doha Round of multilateral negotiations, launched in 2001 with the goal of reducing global trade barriers.

"We have not been able to meet the targets set for July, it is really disappointing," Supachai, who ends his term on August 31, told journalists.

The 148 WTO governments are meeting this week to take stock of efforts to reach an agreement at a December summit in Hong Kong, and then go into summer recess until September.

Supachai said members needed to organise a string of "reality checks" as Hong Kong looms.

"I believe the first such checkpoint should be no later than mid-October," he told delegates.

"By then we should expect to have reached, or be very close to reaching, agreement on the key strategic issues."

The Hong Kong meeting is meant to cap the round, setting the stage for a treaty in 2006 that cuts tariffs and other obstacles to commerce and uses trade to spur development in poor countries.

The on-and-off talks have raised -- and then dashed -- hopes since they started in Qatar in 2001.

"This pendulum which has swung between euphoria and reality has to stop swinging," said Indian trade minister Kamal Nath.

However, he took an upbeat tone, despite limited progress on a deal.

"What is good is that more or less everything is on the table. No cards are left in anybody's pockets."

Deputy US trade chief Peter Allgeier, whose boss Rob Portman was due in Geneva Friday, said: "Countries desparately need new market opportunities, and if we don't achieve it through the Doha Round, who knows when we will achieve it."

Later, Supachai told journalists trading nations should come up with a text of the draft accord by the middle of November.

The three-day session of the WTO General Council, which ends Friday, is taking place against a background of persistent splits on trade rules, particularly over farm subsidies.

Supachai has regularly chastised governments about the painstaking pace of talks but told members Thursday they should not lose hope.

"I would sum up the situation as disappointing but not disastrous," he said.

"It makes Hong Kong harder but not impossible."

Supachai, a Thai, who will be succeeded by Frenchman Pascal Lamy on September 1, said he had sensed a "renewed commitment" from trading nations.

But without an autumn breakthrough, Hong Kong "will be inevitably put into jeopardy," he said.

WTO members are particularly concerned to avoid a replay in Hong Kong of their failed summits in Seattle, in the US state of Washington, in 1999 and in Cancun, Mexico in September 2003.

Seattle collapsed after ministers were faced with making their minds up within days on a draft text that was riddled with unresolved sections.

The rift in Cancun revolved around the farm trade -- where poor countries and exporting nations such as Australia were seeking more concessions from the European Union and the United States -- and on services, with rich countries pressing the poor to open up sectors including insurance and banking.

Key sticking points still include agricultural tariffs and export subsidies, mainly in wealthy nations.

Export subsidies allow EU and US farmers to dump cut-price produce on world markets, thereby preventing poor producers from competing fairly and increasing reliance on aid, campaigners say.

The farm trade issue has also provoked a spat between the EU and the US.

EU trade chief Peter Mandelson, also in Geneva, urged the US to cut aid to American farmers.

But Allgeier, speaking to journalists, said: "The US has to do more on domestic support, but so do all the others, including the EU."

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