Doha trade deal can be done: Lamy

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A Doha trade deal can be done but ministers will only be called to a meeting to discuss a text if the moment is right, the head of the World Trade Organisation has said.

A six-year push for a global trade deal hangs in the balance with rich and poor countries still unable to reach agreement on how markets access should be restructured.

"I have never said the deal is done or it will be done. What I said is my own view, for what it is worth, is that a deal is doable," WTO directorg general Pascal Lamy told Reuters in Pretoria after meeting South African President Thabo Mbeki. For agricultural markets, he said, negotiators were working on technical matters to get the final numbers within already agreed ranges, but on industrial tariffs, more precision on the formula to cut barriers was required. Lamy said he hoped the parties would become closer to agreement so a ministerial meeting could be called.

"We are not there as of today, but we may get there in the coming weeks. Again, it is doable. I am not saying I am sure it will be done, but I believe that a number of technical issues can be closed," he said.

"If I convene a small ministerial meeting, it is obviously with the notion that the moment is right. It is a question of judgment." The WTO was expected to summon top trade officials to Geneva in late March or early April as it strives for a breakthrough in the negotiations.

New Zealand's ambassador to the WTO and chairman of the farm negotiations, Crawford Falconer, has said a meeting was more likely in April than March. The Doha round was launched in late 2001 to give the global economy a boost and help poor nations fight poverty by lowering barriers to their exports.

It was revived last year and trade ministers at the World Economic Forum in January declared their determination to meet in March or April to try to complete a deal by the year-end. A change in the administration in Washington next year could push back the negotiations by several years or cause them to collapse, diplomats say. European Union Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said on Friday the trade deal faced a high risk of failure, which would be a first for a multilateral trade round.