EU business calls on WTO to speed up Doha talks

By Jonathan Lynn

GENEVA (Reuters) - European businesses, growing frustrated at slow progress in the World Trade Organisation's Doha round, called on Sunday for the WTO to speed up negotiations next week.

The WTO is holding a ministerial conference from Monday to Wednesday, but negotiations on Doha, launched eight years ago to open markets and help developing countries grow through trade, are off the agenda.

Instead ministers will review the WTO's work and its contribution to economic recovery and tackling problems such as climate change. Doha is likely to be discussed on the sidelines.

Economists argue about precise benefits of a Doha deal but political leaders and the WTO believe it would boost business confidence by removing uncertainty from the world economy.

"At some point of time all WTO members will have to make up their minds on the conclusion of the round," said Carsten Dannoehl, senior adviser for international relations at BusinessEurope, the EU business lobby.

"What could be a better moment than a WTO Ministerial Meeting that gathers the whole membership?" he told Reuters.

BusinessEurope is expected to issue a call during the conference for the WTO's 153 members to focus on concluding a Doha deal, which would cut industrial and agricultural tariffs, slash farm subsidies and open up trade in services.

WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy says a Doha agreement is 80 percent complete. But mindful of previous WTO conferences that broke up in acrimony, he wants to avoid submitting an incomplete proposal to ministers.