WTO nearing global accord; deal details may be agreed soon

GENEVA: World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiators are edging closer to a global accord and the details of a final deal ���could be agreed within weeks���, European Union trade commissioner Catherine Ashton said.

Speaking after a meeting with US trade representative Susan Schwab in Brussels, Ms Ashton said leaders from the Group of 20 gathering in Washington this weekend must send a ���clear signal��� to negotiators to clinch a trade agreement. In the meantime, the US and the EU ���will continue to provide leadership to maintain the openness that has brought growth and prosperity in the past,��� she said.

WTO negotiators have been trying to reach an agreement to cut agriculture subsidies and tariffs on industrial goods. Nine days of talks collapsed on July 29 after India and the US disagreed over how poor nations could increase duties to protect their economies from surging farm imports.

���At this critical time, it is all the more important that we not only avoid retrenchment in market opening, but move ahead with an ambitious and balanced Doha Round that creates new trade flows and generates economic opportunities worldwide,��� Ms Schwab said.

Leaders from Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and German chancellor Angela Merkel to European central bank president Jean-Claude Trichet and Australian treasurer Wayne Swan have said a WTO agreement could strengthen economic growth in the future and counter the current global slowdown. The G-20 the UK, France, Italy, Japan, Germany, the US and Canada ��� as well as Argentina, Australia, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea and Turkey. It also takes in the 27-nation EU, represented by France, which holds the bloc���s rotating presidency.