DAVOS, Jan 28: Trade ministers here have agreed to re-launch the stalled trade talks, according to an announcement made here at the conclusion of an informal ministerial meeting.

Timeline for concluding the Doha Round of negotiations has not been decided.

The Doha round of trade negotiations has gained a “new momentum”, said Pascal Lamy, director-general, World Trade Organisation. The meeting was tipped by experts to be more important for business and trade than the main event, the World Economic Forum.

Mr Lamy announced that the stalled Doha Round trade negotiations had been given a new impetus by talks ministers from 30 countries held here.

Kamal Nath, Minister of Commerce and Industry of India, declared: “Despite the cold outside in Davos, we have been able to defreeze the talks that were frozen.”

Both were speaking at a session on trade just a few hours after the ministers had agreed to re-launch the negotiations suspended last July because of strong disagreements between developed and developing countries, and between the European Union and the United States, on how far agricultural subsidies and tariffs on industrial goods should be cut.

“Today’s ministerial meeting has put quite a lot of energy into the notion that the landing zone is in sight,” said Mr Lamy.

“I remain of the view that it (the round) is doable,” he declared, while adding a note of caution. Developing countries have to be convinced that there is more being offered by the major trade powers than before, he said.

Pakistan’s Commerce Minister Humayun Akhtar agreed with other ministers that the talks, considered a last-ditch effort to save the round launched at the end of 2001, had been successful in getting the process moving again after months of hiatus.

“Pakistan has made quality contribution in making the revival of negotiations possible along with other key players at the session here” he said while talking to reporters.

“We are now in the endgame. Either way, this is going to end in success or failure in the next two to three months,” said Peter Mandelson, Commissioner, Trade, European Commission, Brussels. “It would be a terrible misjudgement if we allow what we have now to slip away.” Celso Amorim, Minister of Foreign Relations of Brazil, said he was ready to carry on talking immediately to get details of a final accord.

“If Pascal (Lamy) wants to lock us in a room and leave us until we have the numbers, I am ready to do that today or tomorrow,” he said.

Akira Amari, Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan, commented: “If other people are ready to show their cards, we are ready to show our cards too.”

Ministers of trade of Australia, Benin, Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, the EU, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Jamaica, Japan, Kenya, Malaysia, Mauritius, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Peru, Senegal, South Africa, Switzerland, the US, GC Chair and DG WTO attended the meeting.

International advocacy groups and civil society representatives, however, were reported to be rallying what they consider “an elite trade meeting at a Swiss ski resort” that they say will “ignore the interests of most member countries of the World Trade Organisation”.

But groups say such “mini-ministerials” termed the agreement undemocratic, that they say ‘should be scrapped altogether’. They argue that the meeting is without the full participation of all the 149 WTO members, and lacks any participation at all from civil society groups.

“Major trade negotiations should only happen during official WTO meetings,” ActionAid International, a group that monitors global trade talks, said in a statement.

The European Union and the United States have both offered to cut their hefty agricultural subsidies, but made this step conditional on developing nations opening their markets further.