By IANS
London : India's Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath and three other key negotiators from the United States, European Union and Brazil will meet Friday in Brussels in an effort to salvage global trade talks mired in controversy over farm subsidies and market access.
Nath's three co-negotiators at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks are European Union Commissioner Peter Mandelson, US Trade Representative Susan Schwab and Brazil's Foreign Minister Celso Amorim, the Prensa Latina news agency said.
WTO Director General Pacal Lamy has expressed his optimism that the Brussels conclave will be able to resolve the persisting differences among the negotiators.
Speaking in a forum of the Organization for Cooperation and Economic Development (OCED), Lamy said negotiations are starting to show results on previous commitments.
However, the European Commissioner for Agriculture, Marian Fischer Boel, declared recently in Brussels she did not expect important advances in negotiations inside the WTO.
The Doha Round of negotiations started in 2001 has been bogged down in difference over the questions of market access and farm subsidies with the developing countries insisting on reduction of subsidies by the US and western governments.