The substance of an agreement between WTO members that would launch the so-called Doha-round of trade talks is taking shape after discussions in London, an EU source said on Sunday.
"The contents of an agreement are getting clear. The aim of the meeting was not to reach an agreement but to give very clear instructions to negotiators," the source said in Brussels.
WTO negotiators from the European Union, Brazil, South Africa and the United States met over the weekend in London.
"The mood was pretty positive. We are taking steps forward and the meeting was a good warm-up for the mini-ministerial meeting to be held in Paris in May," the source added.
In addition to the trade representatives at the London meeting, 15 other negotiators will meet on May 14 on the sidelines of a ministerial conference at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
The London meeting, which began over dinner on Friday, was hosted by US trade representative Robert Zoellick, and involved EU trade commissioner Pascal Lamy, Kenyan Trade Minister Mukhisa Kituyi, his South African counterpart Alec Erwin and Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim.
According to EU officials, the goal was to define a package of proposals that would incite the G90 group of 90 developing nations to make the Doha round of global trade talks a success. The aim, they said, was to successfully conclude the Doha round by January 1, 2005.
The trade negotiations have been on the back burner since the failure of a World Trade Organisation ministerial meeting in Cancun, Mexico, in September 2003.