GENEVA, Nov 2: World Trade Organization chief Pascal Lamy urged member nations on Wednesday to be flexible in troubled talks on extending free trade, warning that failure to reach an agreement would harm the world economy and smother the aspirations of poor countries.

Lamy urged the 148 members not to lose sight the aim they set for a new round when it was launched in the Qatari capital Doha in 2001 to help developing countries by bringing down trade barriers in key areas such as agriculture.

“Failure to show, at this moment, that such commitments were serious, will have a negative impact on the future of the whole multilateral trading system and on the world economy,” the director-general warned.

He cited data estimating that the failure to conclude a Doha round agreement in one area alone, the trade in industrial products, would represent a loss of $50 billion to $250 billion.

Key trading nations are still at loggerheads, especially on agriculture, despite Lamy’s appeal for them to have a deal two thirds completed by a WTO ministerial conference next month in Hong Kong.

“This is no time for ‘take it or leave it’ attitudes or proposals, but the moment to combine flexibility with ambition, and political courage and resolve, so that we can make progress,” Lamy said.

“A non-round would mean that we would stifle the hope of developing countries for further market opportunities, and further justice and equity in our multilateral trade system,” he added in a speech to commemorate the late trade chief Arthur Dunkel, who died earlier this year.

Lamy said offers currently on the table in agriculture already represented “more than double” what was achieved in the Uruguay Round that led to the creation of the WTO in 1995.

“If we fail to advance negotiations now and to bring the round to conclusion in 2006, this opportunity will be missed,” he cautioned.

A senior WTO negotiator warned on Monday that the talks were dangerously adrift, as a fresh proposal by the European Union on agriculture failed to win consensus among the world’s leading trading powers.

The United States has also tabled proposals to cut farm tariff barriers, prompting a quizzical reaction from some key trading partners. Other areas are also deadlocked.

Senior trade officials and ministers from Australia, Brazil, the EU, India and the United States are due to meet in London on Monday in a renewed attempt to bridge their differences.—AFP