The head of the World Trade Organization (WTO) on Thursday called on the body's 153 members to further accelerate the Doha Round trade negotiations so that a deal could be achieved next year to help stabilize the global economy.
Addressing the WTO's General Council meeting, Pascal Lamy said the global economy had been lifted "out of the abyss" due to world 's collective efforts.
He expressed hope that 2010 should be the year in which "we build on the foundations for a safer, more sustainable global economy."
"We can and must make our contribution through clinching a final Doha deal," he told WTO ambassadors.
Eight years after its launch, the complex Doha Round is still not in its endgame as major WTO members are still not closing gaps on such key issues as agricultural tariffs, subsidies and industrial market access.
Many analysts are doubting that the 2010 target could be met given the current situation, in which the United States seems not really focused on achieving a final deal based on the achievements already made in the past eight years.
The WTO chief has repeatedly said that some 80 percent of the Doha Round work is already complete and only 20 percent remains. Most WTO members also insist that achievements made through eight years of efforts must be kept intact for any final deal to be reached.
At a recent WTO ministerial conference, Lamy stressed that WTO members need to break the deadlock in the Doha Round trade negotiations by the end of March if they are to meet their target of concluding the Round in 2010.
At Thursday's General Council meeting, he again urged major WTO members to intensify negotiations, including bilateral, trilateral or quadrilateral ones, as early as possible after the Christmas break and to share the fruits
with the whole WTO membership.
He said a so-called stocktaking meeting should take place in the last week of March with an aim to assess "whether 2010 remains doable."
But at this juncture, the format and exact content of the stocktaking meeting remains open.