UPDATE: Key Trade Ministers See Good Basis For Doha

Agreement

(Updates with details of declaration, comments from

ministers and adds background.)

DAVOS, Switzerland (AFP)--Leading trade ministers on

Saturday said there was a "sound basis" for agreeing a

new global free trade pact this year amid growing fears

about protectionism as the economic crisis bites.

Ministers from 18 economies met on the sidelines of the

Davos forum, saying afterwards that they would push to

overcome their differences early this year in the so-called

Doha Round of World Trade Organization (WTO)

negotiations.

"We recognize the major progress made in 2008 towards

finalizing modalities in the Doha Development Round,

which provides a sound basis for an early resolution of

the remaining differences in 2009," a declaration

endorsed by the ministers said.

There was no permanent U.S. negotiator at the meeting,

however, which brought together key emerging powers

Brazil and India as well as European and Asian ministers.

Acting U.S. Trade Representative Peter Allgeier endorsed

the statement.

Ministers have been struggling to agree a trade deal since

talks were launched in Doha in 2001 and regular pledges

to make progress and complete the round have come to

nothing.

World leaders had pledged in a meeting in Washington in

November to agree a framework agreement before the

end of 2008, but World Trade Organization chief Pascal

Lamy called off a planned December gathering due to a

lack of consensus.

Swiss Economy Minister Doris Leuthard, host of the

meeting here, set out a possible timetable for talks,

saying ministers could meet before a G20 summit in April,

then again in June, before a full meeting in Geneva in

July.

"All of us have expressed a strong commitment to finalize

the Doha negotiations but this is not enough. We need a

commitment on the starting point, " she told reporters.

"One important element will be in the next weeks and

months if every member says yes (to the restarting

process), that we do not begin with backtracking. The

starting point of our discussion is what we discussed in

July, up to December."

WTO members were considered to have come close to

agreeing on a deal in July in Geneva, but talks fell apart

after more than a week of intense negotiating amid mutual

recriminations from rich and poor countries.

Fear of protectionism has stalked this year's Davos

meeting, with leaders and business officials stressing the

danger that the next phase of the economic crisis could

be government policies that crimp trade.

The worry is that anger at job cuts resulting from the

financial crisis and the use of public money in bailouts

could lead governments to enact policies to favour their

national companies and close their markets to foreign

products.

A new global trade pact is seen by leaders as a way of

preventing this, by binding countries into rules that are

monitored by the Geneva-based WTO.

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