Ministers and officials from the 135 member countries of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) attending the annual Davos gathering of political and business leaders agree that differences between them look hard to bridge right now. And in speeches and interviews, they have made clear they accept that long preparation is essential to avoid a repetition of the collapse of a WTO ministerial meeting in Seattle last month that had been called to kick off a "Millennium Round."

"We must not allow ourselves to become captives of a time-frame," Switzerland's Economy Minister Pascal Couchepin told Reuters. "We must not put ourselves under pressure. There is no urgency about reaching results very quickly." Couchepin suggested the next WTO ministerial, due by November 2001, two years after Seattle, would be the most reasonable target to aim for - a view shared by other smaller but economically influential states.

Mexico's President Ernesto Zedillo, in a ringing speech that reflected the views of most developing countries in the WTO where they make up three quarters of the membership, reaffirmed his country's enthusiasm for negotiations to lower barriers to trade in goods and services.

But he fiercely rejected - in terms echoed by officials from other emerging economies in Davos - insistence by the United States that a new round would have to cover the controversial issues of labour conditions and environment.

Poorer countries see US-driven efforts to make labour and environmental standards enforceable through WTO rules as primarily aimed at pushing up the cost of their products and keep them from competing on Western markets. Even US trade representative Charlene Barshefsky, speaking a day after President Bill Clinton set out his wish-list for a round he said he would like to see start this year, recognised the problems ahead. The developing world is not hearing what we're saying, and we're not hearing what the developing world is saying.

We're passing like ships in the night," she said after an informal Sunday meeting of trade ministers at the World Economic Forum. Poorer countries say they resent Washington pressure on the labour and environment issues, which they see as reflecting US domestic politics - although they recognise Clinton's Davos speech marked a change from the harder line he took in Seattle.