L'Aquila, Italy - The world's most powerful trading nations called Thursday for an immediate restart of the stalled Doha round of World Trade Organization talks with a view to reaching a deal in 2010. "We are setting a deadline of 2010 for concluding the Doha round (on world trade)," said British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on the sidelines of a Group of Eight (G8) meeting extended to the world's biggest emerging nations.
Brown singled out the United States and India for praise over the agreement to try and put aside the differences which sank a deal last year.
"For us to get this agreement ... is a reflection of the policy that the US administration is taking and the willingness of countries like India to come to an agreement," he said.
At the summit of G8 leaders with the Group of Five (G5) major rising economies and Egypt, leaders announced that trade ministers would be meeting ahead of a Group of 20 summit in Pittsburgh in September to re-start negotiations.
The Doha talks, which are meant to stimulate development by liberalizing world trading rules, started in 2001 but hit deadlock in July 2008 amid a row between the United States and India over so-called "special safeguard mechanisms" limiting agricultural trade.
"Almost everything had been agreed (last year) but we couldn't get agreement on the special safeguards mechanism," Brown said.
A statement approved by the leaders of the so-called "G8+5+1" group in L'Aquila called for an "an ambitious and balanced conclusion for the Doha Development Round in 2010."
The statement tasked trade ministers with meeting before the Pittsburgh summit, without setting a date. The idea of a mini-ministerial meeting in India was also being floated in L'Aquila.
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said the statement set "a realistic but important target."
"This time we have to deliver," Barroso said.
Thursday's agreement was made against the backdrop of a global recession and the first decline in world trade in decades.
The meeting also insisted that, despite the downturn, world powers should "maintain and promote open markets and reject all protectionist measures in trade and investment."
The meeting involved the leaders of the G8 (Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States, plus the European Union), the G5 (Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa) and Egypt, representing the Muslim world.
The only leader not present at the summit was China's President Hu Jintao. He had been set to attend, but was forced to fly home to confront ethnic riots in the province of Xinjiang.
