Cancun: The world trade talks collapsed on September 14 after 100 odd developing and least developed countries blocked the European Union (EU) and United States (US) agenda to bring in new issues, including investment rules and competition policy into the World Trade Organisation (WTO) work programme after bitterly fighting over agriculture, loaded heavily in favour of developed countries in the draft declaration.

After working hard and constructively to make progress, the talks ended without any declaration, as more work was needed to be done in some key areas, a ministerial statement issued at the end of the failed five-day ministerial said.

In those areas where a high-level of convergence on texts was reached, "We undertake to maintain this convergence while working for an acceptable overall outcome," the one-page statement said adding a meeting of the General Council of WTO at senior officials level will be convened before December 15 to move towards a successful and timely conclusion of the negotiations.

Analysts say this was one of the biggest defeats for trade liberalisation since a chaotic meeting at Seattle in 1999, when the ministerial failed after the US and EU tried to thrust labour standards and environment, considered to be non-trade issues by developing countries into the work programme of WTO.

"Nothing has been agreed at this conference and it was not clear how the future declaration could take place," analysts said, adding there was a success in failure in the sense it has helped developing countries forge a formidable alliance on the contentious Singapore and agriculture issues.

The collapse had taken many, including India by surprise, as developing countries had nearly succeeded in extracting a major concession shelve three of the four the Singapore issues, investment, competition policy and transparency in government procurement into the backburner.

Now the Singapore issue is not dead, analysts said, adding the ministerial has, however, brought developing countries concerns into the centre-stage of the multilateral trade negotiations.

PTI