The head of the World Trade Organization (WTO) said today states had made progress towards a full relaunch of free trade talks but were not there yet.
The 146 WTO member countries were meeting in Geneva to assess the chances of getting the Doha Round back on track after it was all but derailed by the collapse of ministerial talks in Cancun, Mexico, in September.
Mediators had already ruled out any possibility of an immediate full-scale resumption of the negotiations, which were begun in the Qatari capital in late 2001, and the meeting was largely aimed at setting a new timetable.
"Our collective aim for today, as instructed by ministers at Cancun, was to arrive at a point where the negotiations can resume full momentum," WTO director-general Mr Supachai Panitchpakdi said. "We are not yet at this point but we should not be disheartened," he added.
Both Mr Supachai, who has held a series of meetings with trade ministers, and the president of the WTO's executive General Council, Ambassador Carlos Perez del Castillo of Uruguay, who has been acting as mediator in Geneva, said there were some signs that the Cancun deadlock could be broken.
The talks in the Mexican resort broke down mainly over how much and how quickly rich powers should cut the billions of dollars they spend on farm subsidies each year and on whether the talks should be expanded to include new issues - the so-called Singapore issues - demanded by the European Union.