Top trade ministers admitted on Tuesday they could have to delay a mid-December deadline for a global deal, although the European Union warned such a move was risky and there was still time to overcome deep divisions.
Officials from key members of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) said it might not be possible to achieve a full blueprint for a treaty before a December meeting in Hong Kong to give the world economy a boost and help alleviate poverty.
"We may need a Hong Kong II," Brazilian Trade Minister Celso Amorim said on Tuesday ahead of a meeting of trade ministers from around the world.
Amorim and his EU, US, Indian and Japanese counterparts met in London on Monday, but failed to break new ground, although they all described the discussions as positive.
EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said he was still pressing for a wide-ranging agreement when all the WTO's 148 members meet in Hong Kong between December 13 and 18.
"The moment you start reducing expectations, you risk introducing complacency," Mandelson said, heading for the Geneva meeting which is due to stretch into Wednesday. "My view is that we should keep up the pressure to narrow the differences."
After four years of talks, the gap between rich and poor nations, chiefly over agriculture, remains wide. All sides have warned the negotiations risk collapse if the deadlock remains.
Some ministers and senior trade officials feel the time has come to lower the target for Hong Kong to avoid a damaging failure like the conference in Cancun, Mexico, in 2003.
But they add that any delay could not lead to a weakening of the overall goals of the round - slashing of rich nation farm subsidies and market-opening across the global economy - or for a postponement of the round's final end-2006 deadline. "I think that we may have to be content with a little less," Amorim said about Hong Kong. "But if that happens, it does not mean lowering the ambition of the round."
The EU has so far borne most of the criticism from other major trading nations for the impasse in the negotiations.
The United States, Australia and Brazil say Brussels must go further to open up Europe's protected farm market. The European Commission has revised its agricultural offer last month and says it now wants progress in industrial goods and services.
WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy had said he wanted Hong Kong to take the round two-thirds of the way towards conclusion, with all the major bargaining and trade-offs done.
"Expectations for Hong Kong at the given time would have to be tempered with the realities that exist," said India's Trade Minister Kamal Nath as he entered Tuesday's talks.
The trade talks must end before the US president's "fast-track" authority to negotiate trade deals expires in 2007. "This is all about working towards a consensus. It is not easy," said US Trade Representative Rob Portman.
Mandelson said Monday's talks created "a stronger platform" by moving beyond agriculture into industrial goods and services.
But Amorim, who said he was unhappy at the lack of movement on agriculture, said the EU was demanding too much in other areas and that he suspected it was a tactical move to prevent Brussels from having to concede more on farm goods. Aid campaign group Oxfam warned that poor countries, intended as the winners in the WTO round, could lose as the EU could actually increase its trade-distorting subsidies to farmers and similar US handouts could be cut by a lot less than the 60 percent offered by Washington.