WTO mediators see trade deal near, others disagree

By Jonathan Lynn

GENEVA (Reuters) - A long-awaited global trade deal is now in sight, the mediators of the main farm and industry negotiations said on Tuesday.

But a day after the World Trade Organization (WTO) issued new agriculture and industrial goods proposals, businesses and farmers in the United States and European Union were protesting that the revised texts did not go far enough to open up markets in big developing country such as Brazil, China and India.

"Anybody ... can now see clearly the summit that you're trying to climb," said New Zealand's WTO ambassador Crawford Falconer, who chairs the farm talks.

"We've got through ... the cloud layer, we're getting pretty thin on oxygen but the task now is that on the basis of this we can go on and finish the job," he told a news conference.

In Washington, U.S. business officials were less optimistic about the chances for a long-awaited breakthrough.

"I think we need a doctor for Doha," said Christopher Wenk, senior director for international policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "It's becoming harder and harder to imagine there could be a deal by the end of the year."

The new industrial goods text does not appear to do enough to pry open advanced developing country markets, Wenk said. But "these revised texts are not the final package," so there's still hope for an acceptable deal, he said.

The revised texts issued on Monday are the latest stage in the WTO's Doha round of trade talks, launched in late 2001 but since then mired in wrangling between rich and poor nations. Its aim is to open up world trade and help developing countries export more.