Trade powers eye new WTO push around Easter

By Sam Cage and Jonathan Lynn

DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) - Rich and poor countries aim to meet around Easter to try to seal a long- elusive global trade deal before U.S. President George W. Bush leaves office, ministers said on Saturday.

A trade deal would inject much-needed confidence into a troubled world economy, and help ward off protectionist trends, ministers said.

"We have a window of necessity which is also a window of opportunity," Brazil's Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said.

Ministers representing the United States, the European Union, emerging market leaders Brazil and India, and a dozen other trading countries met World Trade Organisation chief Pascal Lamy in the Swiss mountain resort of Davos on Saturday to discuss the chances of getting a breakthrough in the Doha round.

"We've agreed that, if the round is going to be done successfully, it needs to be done this year. It needs to be done on President Bush's watch," EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson told reporters.

"But if we're going to do a deal in that timescale, then that points to a necessary breakthrough, which only ministers can do, at Easter or thereabouts," he said.

Easter falls this year towards the end of March.

Swiss Economy Minister Doris Leuthard, who hosted Saturday's lunch for ministers, said the idea of a meeting around Easter was proposed by Lamy and supported by all those attending.