GENEVA (AFP) — World Trade Organisation chief Pascal Lamy on Saturday called for a "political spasm" soon to drive the deadlocked Doha round of global trade talks past its final set of hurdles.
"My take is that we are entering the last laps," Lamy said as negotiators completed a first week of intensified negotiations on fresh compromise proposals to cut barriers in two key areas, agriculture and industrial goods.
Lamy told a conference on international security issues that the compromise text "still reflects the gap" between the WTO's 151 members.
"There are not wide differences to be narrowed but there remain some differences -- much less than there was last year or two years ago," he explained.
Chief negotiators have scheduled three weeks of intense talks at WTO headquarters in Geneva to narrow the divide and agree on the outline of cuts in farm subsidies, and import tariffs on farm and industrial goods, before the end of the year.
"This will not take place without a political spasm which has to take place quite soon," Lamy underlined.
The WTO Director General has repeatedly called for greater political input from world leaders to bridge the gap between rich and poor countries that has dogged the talks since they were launched in the Qatari capital in 2001.
Lamy said on the sidelines of an Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) this week that he was looking for "convergence on basic principles" by November.
In his speech to the International Institute of Strategic Studies conference in Geneva, Lamy argued that free and fair trade -- and its broadening under Doha Round -- was an essential component for global security.
"The conclusion of the Doha Development Round has strategic importance," Lamy said, underlining that it would reinforce the globalisation's acceptability.
"A failure in the Doha Round will maybe lead to resentement, frustration, in particular from developing countries who have heavily invested in negotiations and want to rebalance the system in their favour," he cautioned.
The Doha Round was primarily aimed helping developing nations to take advantage of expanding global trade, particularly by cutting farm subsidies that support the prices of rich country produce on world markets, and by easing access to agricultural markets in Europe and North America.
