Director General of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Supachai Panitchpakdi said Sunday that the stalled talks on the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) will resume in a limited way next week, reported the Financial Express on Monday.

Supachai made the remarks in Dhaka when attending the two-day International Business Conference, which concluded on Sunday.

He was quoted as saying that he will first start a small group meeting next week, which would be "some kind of signal that we are embarking on negotiations," while the formal parts of the meeting on the DDA will resume after the appointments of the negotiation groups.

The WTO director general, however, seemed skeptical about the possibility to meet the deadline for addressing the DDA, as negotiations on the DDA are supposed to be completed by January 2005 according to the declaration of the WTO ministerial conference in Doha.

Supachai, former Thai deputy prime minister, expressed his firm optimism that multilateralism will prevail over the recent burst of bilateral and regional trade agreements, as both developed and developing countries attending the international conference here have already shown their keen interest in kicking off the trade talks after Cancun stalemate.

Since most of the spadework has been done in Cancun, the significant discussion on the modalities for market access could be conducted in Geneva if the members agree, said he, adding that by the middle of 2004 there should be certain progress on key areas of the market access.

When asked about the possibility of holding the sixth WTO ministerial meeting in Hong Kong by the end of 2004, Supachai replied the process remains uncertain so far, as they first need to have advices from members in Geneva on how to restart the talks, while Hong Kong will need at least one year's time to organized the meeting.

(Xinhua News Agency January 19, 2004)