CAIRNS, July 5: A top US official warned on Thursday that global trade talks risk being stalled for years unless a breakthrough is made this year, as APEC ministers called on all sides to go back to the table.United States Trade Representative Susan Schwab told reporters at a meeting of APEC trade ministers in Australia that it was crucial to kickstart the deadlocked negotiations in the Doha round of the World Trade Organisation.

“I think there is a sense that if we don't get it done this year, Doha could well go into hibernation for several years to come,” she warned, stepping up the pressure on developing nations Brazil and India.

The Doha round of WTO talks are stalled over a row over about agricultural subsidies granted to farmers by the United States and the EU, and trade tariffs.

Critical discussions between the so-called “G4” — the European Union and the United States on one side and Brazil and India on the other -- aimed at reviving the talks collapsed two weeks ago in Germany.

Trade ministers for the 21 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum economies meeting in the resort town of Cairns issued a statement at the end of their first day of talks calling on all sides in the trade talks to break the deadlock.

“There has never been a more urgent need to make progress,” the APEC ministers, whose economies account for 60 per cent of the world's gross domestic product, said. “We all undertake to contribute.

“We will demonstrate the necessary political will and flexibility, and call upon other WTO members to do the same,” the statement said.

Australian Trade Minister Warren Truss, who is chairing the meeting in the run-up to the APEC leaders' summit in Sydney in September, had said a key goal of the meeting was to find a way to help resurrect the Doha round.

After the first day's gathering, he said there was a strong commitment from the APEC members not to give up on Doha because “the big four have failed”.

However, the APEC trade ministers had decided against including the thorny issue of targets for cutting farm subsidies and industrial tariffs in their statement, he said.

“We didn't seek to reach agreement on ... subsidy levels or tariffs numbers and things of that nature,” Truss said.

Truss had earlier said the failure of the G4 talks again raised the question of whether the Doha round could reach a conclusion acceptable to all 150 WTO members but said there remained a glimmer of hope on resurrecting the talks.

But he said the APEC ministers were determined to try and bring some leadership to breathing new life into the moribund Doha round.

“Foremost in our discussions today will be an assessment of the Doha round of negotiations and an examination of how we may be able to contribute constructively to that process,” he told the ministers.

The APEC ministers also agreed to a new proposal designed to cut by five per cent off the cost of doing business across member economies, which has the potential to boost trade in the region by $145 billion.

Schwab told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that APEC could play an important role in breathing life into the WTO talks.

“If APEC is able to make a statement as a group then that is likely to influence the outcome (of talks at the WTO) in Geneva,” she said.

Schwab also said Washington was keen to discuss the possibility of a massive Asia-Pacific free trade pact, an initiative which may gain momentum if the Doha round fails irrevocably.

“So much of our trade is in the Asia-Pacific region and it would make an incredible amount of sense to see an Asia-Pacific wide trade agreement,” she said.

—APP