Time is running out for countries trying to revive the Doha Round negotiations on tearing down trade barriers after WTO talks at the weekend failed to break a long-running deadlock.
Three days of meetings at the 149-nation World Trade Organisation left it no closer to sealing a landmark treaty by the end of this year.
Ahead of the talks, WTO chief Pascal Lamy had pressed governments, saying that they could no longer afford to duck an agreement.
But WTO heavyweights - including Brazil, the EU, India and the US - failed to settle bitter arguments over the trade concessions required.
'We have to squarely face the fact that we are now in a crisis situation,' Lamy said afterwards.
The Geneva talks highlighted the deep divisions between rich and poor countries, as well as among the wealthy, which have dogged almost five years of the WTO's Doha Round trade negotiations.
The Doha Round has lurched alternately from collapse to revival since it was launched in the Qatari capital in 2001 with the goal of slashing trade barriers and helping developing economies accelerate economic growth. Talks were originally meant to wrap up in 2004, but the end-date was later pushed back to December 2006.
