April 12, 2007	Thursday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 23, 1428

CANBERRA, April 11: Australia remains optimistic top trade officials will be able to rescue stalled world trade talks, but a deal will need to be finalised within 12 months, Trade Minister Warren Truss said on Wednesday.

Trade ministers from the United States, the European Union, India and Brazil meet in New Delhi this week for the first time in more than eight months to discuss how to revive trade talks, followed by a wider meeting with Australia and Japan.

“There is a degree of urgency about the discussions. We clearly need to be making some progress, otherwise the spirit and the enthusiasm for the process will start to wither away,” Truss told reporters.

“If it is not in the next 12 months, we will have to start again in quite some time later on,” he said, adding it was important a deal was struck before the United States became caught up with its 2008 Presidential elections.

The Doha round of trade talks broke down in July last year with substantial differences over agricultural protection. The talks were designed to free up world trade and were billed as a chance to boost the world economy and reduce poverty.

Truss, who will also travel to Pakistan from April 15 for a meeting of the 19-member Cairns group of agriculture-exporting nations, said he did not expect a breakthrough from the talks in India.

He said they would be a chance to find out what progress had been made in a series of bilateral discussions between the United States, India, Europe and Brazil.

Truss also played down the significance of trying to achieve a new world trade pact by June 30, when “fast-track” authority runs out for the White House to negotiate trade deals the U.S. Congress must accept or reject without changes.

After June 30, the Democrat-controlled Congress will need to extend or approve a new trade promotion authority.

“I don't think there's any more opportunity to place a text before the Congress in relation to the Doha round. But I don't consider it to be an insurmountable barrier,” Truss said.

“I think the US Congress is likely to give a new trade promotion authority so long as there is a good deal on the table. If there's not a good deal on the table, they won't give a new trade promotion authority.” Australia is a strong supporter of free trade, with bilateral free trade deals with the US, New Zealand, Singapore and Thailand, and with negotiations under way with China, Japan, the UAE and the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

—Reuters