New Doha deadline doable but daunting: analysts

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A new deadline for countries to wrap up world trade talks by the end of this year is possible, but will require hard bargains that countries have been unwilling to make so far, analysts said on Thursday.

"Until there is a substantive breakthrough, deadlines are relatively easy to set," said Gary Blumenthal, an analyst at World Perspectives in Washington, in response to the new target set by the United States, the European Union, Japan, India, Brazil and Australia earlier on Thursday in New Delhi.

The Doha round of world trade talks has missed deadline after deadline since being launched more than five years in the capital city of Qatar.

Agriculture has been the main stumbling block, but countries are also at odds over how far to open markets for services and industrial goods in a new world trade deal.

"Conclusion of Doha by year's end is a long shot but doable ... I hope the Delhi meetings have given this a strong kick-start," said Sherman Katz, analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington think tank.

But Blumenthal said he wondered if a new deadline will be enough to dissolve stubborn insistence from the U.S. farm lobby and its allies that trading partners lower farm tariffs.

"Does the Farm Bureau or Congressional Democrats suddenly concede major U.S. reforms but tempered ambitions for market access in India because it is December?" he asked.

Key trading partners have held a series of bilateral meetings since the talks collapsed in July 2006 to discuss possible formulas for bridging the gap in agriculture.

TIME LIMITS

Thursday's meeting in New Delhi was the first time the so-called G6 trading partners have met together since last year's major setback. The G4, which includes the United States, the EU, Brazil and India, met separately.

"A deal on agriculture must be hammered out rapidly, not just in the G4 or G6 -- although both are a sine qua non -- but also with the G33 group of developing countries. This means agreement on just how much flexibility (Doha) will in fact allow poor countries to restrict farm imports," Katz said.

Katz said that serious work was also needed from the leading 40 countries on the rest of the Doha agenda, including manufacturing and services.

Yet one agriculture industry official, who asked to remain anonymous, said nothing short of "tangible market access will get the U.S. farm community to lower their ambitions."

Negotiators are pushing for a major breakthrough in the talks by the end of June, when the White House's trade promotion authority expires.

That legislation, which is deemed essential for U.S. trade negotiation, allows the White House to negotiate trade pacts that Congress must approve or reject without making changes.

The Bush administration's odds of winning renewal of that legislation got much steeper after last year's elections which gave Democrats control of Congress.