France on Tuesday voiced its regret about the "excessive focus" on agricultural issues that led to the suspension of the trade talks of the World Trade Organization (WTO), hoping they could resume on a sounder basis.

"France regrets that the excessive focus of negotiations on agricultural topics led to delaying sine die the expected results in the area of rules, services, (and) market access which are important for French and European companies," French Foreign Ministry spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattei said.

"Faced with the obvious impossibility of reducing differences between the different interested parties, we take note of the decision to suspend talks. We hope that negotiations will be able to restart at the appropriate moment on a sounder basis," he said.

He added that France deplored the lack of progress in discussions over subjects such as alignment in exports competition, geographic indication and erosion of preference.

France remained convinced that negotiations "in the framework of the WTO remain the best option to promote balanced commercial relations between developed countries and developing countries", Mattei said.

WTO chief Pascal Lamy had to suspend the Doha Round of global trade talks on Monday after the six key trading powers -- Australia, Brazil, EU, India, Japan and the United States -- failed to overcome their differences during last ditch meetings in Geneva on Monday.

Source: Xinhua