WTO chief sees substantial progress by July

The head of the World Trade Organisation said on Friday that world trade talks appear to have recovered from their collapse six months ago in Cancun, Mexico, and could make substantial progress by July.
A letter from US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick in January urging WTO members to re-engage in negotiations came just "at the time we needed this stimulus," WTO Director General Supachai Panitchpakdi told reporters.
Senior officials from WTO member countries could be invited to Geneva in April to try to resolve differences on agriculture and other issues that blocked agreement on a final negotiating framework in Cancun, Supachai said.
WTO members also are considering Zoellick's idea of expanding the July meeting of the WTO General Council by inviting trade ministers to attend.
The session would not be a formal "ministerial" meeting, such as the gathering in Cancun. But it would provide a forum for countries to make the difficult decisions that require direct input from capitals.
Supachai said he would withhold judgment until after the July meeting about whether a final deal can be reached by the long-established Jan. 1, 2005, deadline.
"By that time, we should know what needs to be done to finish the round by the end of the year," he said.
EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy told reporters at a separate briefing that he also was optimistic that significant progress could be made in the next several months.
He urged WTO members to finish work on the framework agreement by May so they could begin filling in the details of a final pact this summer.
Lamy met with Zoellick on Friday to discuss the WTO talks and other trade issues. He said he was hopeful of reaching a compromise with G20 countries, led by Brazil and India, on agricultural issues that blocked an agreement in Cancun.
"We've engaged in extremely detailed technical discussions (with the G20) on each and every area of the agricultural negotiations" in an effort to find common ground, he said.
WTO members also have to decide how to handle the four so-called Singapore issues, which were another stumbling block in Cancun.