World powers eye Doha trade deal in 2010

Jul 9, 2009, 22:15 GMT

L'Aquila, Italy - The world's most powerful trading nations called Thursday for an immediate restart of the stalled Doha round of World Trade Organization talks with a view to reaching a deal in 2010.

'We are setting a deadline of 2010 to conclude the Doha round (on world trade),' said British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on the sidelines of a Group of Eight (G8) meeting extended to the world's biggest emerging nations.

At the summit of the Major Economies Forum (MEF) in the Italian city of L'Aquila, leaders announced that trade ministers would be meeting soon to re-start negotiations.

The Doha talks, which are meant to stimulate development by liberalizing world trading rules, started in 2001 but hit deadlock in July 2008 amid a row between the United States and India over agricultural trade.

A draft statement discussed in L'Aquila by the MEF calls for a 'rapid, ambitious, balanced and comprehensive conclusion of the Doha Development Agenda' based on a 'strengthened dialogue with our major partners.'

Leaders said trade ministers would be meeting to discuss the issue 'soon', with sources close to the talks pointing to a planned G20 meeting due to take place in Pittsburgh on September 24-25 as a possible venue. The idea of a mini-ministerial meeting in India was also being floated in L'Aquila.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said the MEF statement set 'a realistic but important target.'

'This time we have to deliver,' Barroso said.

Thursday's agreement was made against the backdrop of a global recession and the first decline in world trade in decades.

The statement was adopted by members of the MEF, which is made up of the G8 leading developed economies (Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States), the five most powerful emerging economies (Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa) plus Australia, Indonesia and South Korea.

The only leader of an MEF country not present at the summit was China's President Hu Jintao. He had been set to attend, but was forced to fly home to confront ethnic riots in the province of Xinjiang.