BRUSSELS, July 3: World Trade Organisation head Pascal Lamy said on Thursday an agreement on the outlines of a global free-trade deal was “feasible” this month.

Hoping for a breakthrough in the long-stalled talks, Lamy has convoked a July 21 meeting of ministers from the main WTO players to try to make yet another stab at concluding a framework agreement.

“If I called a ministerial meeting, it’s because I think that it’s feasible” to reach a framework agreement, he told a conference in Brussels, while acknowledging that “it’s not done.”

The Doha round of trade liberalisation negotiations, launched in the Qatari capital in 2001, has long struggled, with all sides refusing to make big concessions.

“Until the last moment, negotiators are going to say that they’ve paid a lot and received little” so far in the negotiations,” Lamy predicted.

He said that he hoped that “when the time comes” negotiators will realise that their concessions “are worth it” to reach a compromise.

Time is running out for a breakthrough in the negotiations, which were originally supposed to be completed in 2004, before the current US administration steps aside in January.—AFP