New World Trade Organization (WTO)chief Pascal Lamy urged the United States and the European Union (EU) on Wednesday to make concessions in farm negotiations, whose progress is key for a deal in global trade talks.

Both the EU and the United States have it within their powers to break the deadlock, and they both need to make progress in some areas to allow the rest to get moving, Lamy said at his first press conference at WTO headquarters in Geneva since assuming office on Sept. 1.

Farm negotiations have been stalled for months due to differences between the two biggest traders, and negotiators from other WTO members are waiting for the United States and the EU to indicate what they could offer on domestic farm subsidies and import tariffs respectively.

"They do have margins of maneuver which they have to use tactically to the maximum of their capacities ... The question is:when do they show their hand?" said Lamy.

With only three months left before Dec. 13-18, when trade ministers will meet in Hong Kong to clinch an outline deal for the global trade talks, Lamy said progress in some points is needed urgently.

The negotiating roadmap of the new WTO director-general is that the first evaluation of progress achieved from now should be made by mid-October, and specific results of the outline deal should be worked out by mid-November.

"The basic objective is to reach by Hong Kong a result that takes us two-thirds of the way to concluding the round in 2006," he said.

The so-called Doha Round of global trade talks -- named after the Qatari capital where it was launched in 2001 -- has already missed its original December 2004 deadline.

"We are like a football team joining a training camp in view of intensive training ahead of a crucial match, and the crucial match starts Dec. 13 in Hong Kong," said Lamy. "It is going to be three months of continuing work in progress."

Source: Xinhua