Top trade powers are still fighting hard for a global free trade deal this year, with the latest missed deadline seen as a major blow but not a disaster, a senior World Trade Organisation official said on Thursday.
Negotiators in the WTO's Doha round failed to agree cuts to farm aid and import duties on agricultural products and industrial goods by April 30, as they had originally planned.
They are now struggling to rescue a global accord in the next six weeks - one that the World Bank estimates would add $96 billion to the global economy.
"Having missed the April 30 deadline, we have certainly had a disappointment but not a disaster," said Stuart Harbinson, special adviser to WTO head Pascal Lamy.
"This is a postponement, not a cancellation. The Doha Development Agenda is alive and kicking. The ingredients of a major deal are still there. But we are under major time pressure and decisions," he told an international cereals conference.
Lamy has told the WTO's 149 member states they have "weeks rather than months" to put together a pact on slashing rich nation farm subsidies and sharply reducing tariffs on both farm and industrial goods.
Harbinson, a former chairman of the WTO's agriculture committee where the main farm talks are being held, said there seemed to be "genuine engagement and quickening of pace" in the Doha talks, with progress in the negotiations in all areas.
"It's very clear indeed that no one is walking away from the negotiations. All the signs are that the major players, including the United States, remain very actively engaged and committed to producing a result this year," he said.
"We have been going too slowly and been too cautious in our negotiating strategies," he said. "But there is ... a growing realisation among the (WTO) membership that difficult decisions cannot be put off indefinitely."
The Doha round was launched in late 2001 to boost the global economy with the hope of lifting millions out of poverty.
A deal on farm and industrial goods is seen as crucial to clear the way to an agreement across the rest of the round, which also includes services and special measures to aid the poorest countries, by end-July and a complete free trade treaty by the end of the year.