World Trade Organisation (WTO) chief Pascal Lamy told the Group of Eight on Friday that a global free trade deal was "now within reach" if each helped to bridge remaining gaps.
"While my diagnosis remains cautious, I think that an agreement is now within reach," he told a meeting of the G8 attended also by leaders from four leading developing countries - Brazil, India, Mexico and South Africa. Lamy said that differences between the major negotiating groups within the 150-state WTO had been narrowing in recent weeks of talks.
"With an added political effort from each and every one of you, we should be able to cover the remaining ground," he said. The United States still needed to accept deeper cuts to farm subsidies, while the European Union and Japan would have to improve their offers on opening up their farm markets.
He said the concessions amounted to no more than a few billion dollars or euros. But failure to take the opportunity to seal a trade deal involved "enormous risks", he warned. "Nothing could be worse than a failure for the developing countries - whose stakes in world growth are now high - and hence for the rest of you as well," he said.
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