Global trade talks face a possible "do or die" week with WTO chief Pascal Lamy warning that without some big decisions soon the negotiations could fail after more than four years of wrangling.
Ministers from over 50 countries, a third of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) membership, will be in Geneva seeking a breakthrough in the key areas of farm and industrial goods where divisions run deep.
Without a rapid deal in agriculture and manufacturing, which account for some 75 percent of global commerce, there is no chance that the WTO can conclude its Doha round before the clock finally runs out at the end of the year, diplomats say.
"We need big political decisions to be taken now," WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy said in an interview with the BBC.
The trade-off at the heart of any deal, something Lamy calls the "triangle", would see further concessions from the United States on farm subsidies, the European Union on farm tariffs and the bigger developing countries on duties on industrial goods.
"Each of us has to do more, each of us has to show flexibility," European Union trade chief Peter Mandelson acknowledged.
But doing more has so far proved very difficult, with neither the United States nor the European Union moving far from positions laid down long ago despite round after round of talks in capitals and at the WTO's Geneva headquarters.
Success for the trade round could give a multibillion dollar boost to the global economy and help alleviate poverty. Failure could accentuate protectionism and delay any further attempt at multilateral trade liberalisation for years, diplomats say.
VERY DIFFICULT SITUATION: Officially, WTO states are this week attempting to reach complete blueprints for farm and industrial trade, with all the numbers for subsidy and tariff cuts included.
The WTO must complete the round, which also includes a host of other issues such as services 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.
However, as an indication of how hard the task is, the chairman of the agriculture negotiations, New Zealand ambassador Crawford Falconer, has distributed a draft text in agriculture with over 700 brackets around things still to agree. "The evidence at the moment suggests that we are in a very difficult situation," Falconer commented dryly.