Sunday, January 22 2006 09:26 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi : Trade Ministers from 25-30 countries will be attending a WTO Mini-Ministerial at Davos on January 27-28 to take stock of the overall state of negotiations with a view to sustain the momentum gained at Hong Kong.

The Mini-Ministerial being held on the sidelines of the Davos World Economic Forum will set the future course of negotiations, as attention now has to move to political and technically complex issues like agriculture and industrial goods with the April 30 deadline for reaching modalities in these areas looming close.

Commerce Minister Kamal Nath who is attending the Mini-Ministerial is also likely to hold bilateral meetings with European Union shortly after on January 30-31 in London.

Dates are also being worked out for meeting with US and G-20 in February.

While Hong Kong saw broad agreements being reached on end date for farm export subsdies, classification of domestic support levels into three tiers and tariffs into four, the actual modalities and disciplines are to be worked out now.

The meeting assumes significance as EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson, in his address to the EU Parliament, said if EU's trading partners did not make offers it expected, "Europe could settle reluctantly, grudgingly, at the end of the day for a minimalist outcome to the round."

Developing countries on the other hand feel that the talks could attain rapid movement if EU and US were willing to take strides in agriculture.