'Food crisis still playing out on world trade'

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WTO talks collapse in US-India farm rowDog meat traders arrested in Philippines'Food crisis still playing out on world trade'EU to intensify talks for FTA by 2008-end

Nusa Dua, Indonesia, May 4:: key parameters for sensitive products," she said, referring to politically sensitive agricultural products that countries can opt to shield from the full impact of tariff cuts.

In other areas, there was more work to be done, she said.

"But I think what we're talking about here, and this is most significant, we're within a few weeks of taking a run at a horizontal process and that would start with the senior official process and then you'd have ministers come together," she said.

The 'horizontal process' is where negotiators make trade-offs between agricultural and industrial items.

Schwab played down concerns that any Doha agreement could struggle to get through Congress, which has failed to pass a free trade agreement with Colombia under the Bush administration.

"Traditionally, there's been more political push-back on bilateral free trade agreements than multilateral agreements."