World Trade Organisation (WTO) chief Pascal Lamy, in his direst warning yet, said on Friday that global trade talks would plunge into crisis without a breakthrough in the next "few hours or days".
Addressing the WTO's 149 member states, including several dozen trade ministers, Lamy said the trade round's failure would damage the WTO and the multilateral trading system. "We are putting at risk the future of the Doha round ... If we do not turn things around radically in the next few hours or days, we will frankly be facing a crisis," he said. "We are well into the red part of the red zone."
Some 60 ministers, a third of the WTO, are in Geneva in a bid to thrash out a pact by Sunday on farm and manufacturing trade, core areas of the WTO's Doha round.
They pit powerhouses the European Union and the United States against each other and against leading developing states.
Without a deal in these key areas this weekend, Lamy says the WTO will run out of time to conclude the round, which also includes complex issues such as services, by the end of the year, which is the absolute cut-off.
But Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said he saw no sign of progress after talks in the so-called G6 - the United States, the European Union, Brazil, India, Australia and Japan. "I don't sense, until now, any significant progress," he told reporters, adding that he did not see much chance of things changing over the next couple of days.
"Sometimes you need a crisis for an agreement (to come)," he said. Launched in 2001 to boost the global economy and tackle poverty, it is well behind schedule due to deep differences, particularly between developed and developing states.
Lamy challenged ministers to drop the rhetoric and prove they were sincere about completing the round by shifting their negotiating positions to make it possible.
What had already been agreed, such as an end to farm export subsidies by rich states, was already more than had been achieved in any previous trade round, he said.
"Above all, a failure of the round will risk seriously damaging the multilateral system which has served us all so well for some 60 years," he added. Developing countries said that concessions by the rich WTO states on farm trade are a condition for them to cut industrial tariffs, the other half of a hoped-for bargain in Geneva. But rich state demands on manufacturing were excessive.
The WTO must complete the round - which also includes a host of other issues - by the end of the year because special US presidential powers to negotiate on trade will expire next year and Congress looks unlikely to renew them.
Billed as a chance to boost the global economy and lift millions out of poverty, the round's failure could heighten protectionist pressures, officials have warned.
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