Brussels, 09/06/2009 (Agence Europe) - Cairns Group trade ministers, meeting in Bali on 8 June, called for the resumption, as quickly as possible, of the multilateral Doha negotiations on liberalising world trade so that the Round, which has been deadlocked since the WTO ministerial meeting of July 2008, can be concluded, if possible in 2010. The Cairns Group is a coalition of 19 agricultural exporting countries, centred around Australia, and including South Africa, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Indonesia and New Zealand. Their call has been welcomed by WTO Director General Pacsla Lamy. “We have not, up until now, received a signal like this for the resumption of negotiations. Yes, with what I've got here, we should be able to bring things to a successful conclusion in 2010,” he said. The Cairns Group call comes after the United States and India, which are at odds on a crucial section on the special safeguard mechanism in agriculture for developing countries, undertook to press ahead. US representative Ron Kirk has said that the failure of the Round would not be acceptable, and his Indian counterpart Anand Sharma has indicated that he could see no insurmountable difficulties to the conclusion of the Round. Both Kirk and Sharma, who were in Bali, “gave clear indications that they want things to come to a conclusion, and that is something we have not had until now,” Lamy said. Highlighting the need for a new approach to resolve the differences and take account of the economic crisis, Kirk still called for new negotiating bases to be set before August. This was a request echoed by the Cairns Group, which would like to see a ministerial meeting held in Geneva as soon as possible, before the summer holidays in Europe, in order to set the conditions for the resumption of the negotiations, and it promised moves to achieve this aim. At the same time, the Cairns Group was strongly critical of aid measures to the dairy sector already granted or planned in the United States and the EU. (E.H./transl.rt)