Leading trade powers struggled at the weekend to salvage the Doha world trade round in the face of a threatened eleventh-hour rebellion by developing countries this week that could scupper the talks.
With less than three weeks left to agree on a negotiating framework for the round, ministers from the US, the European Union, Brazil, India and Australia said on Sunday they had narrowed some differences at a weekend meeting in Paris.
"There is some convergence on various points. At the same time I would caution that there is still a considerable way to go," Robert Zoellick, US trade representative, said.
Trade officials said progress could be impeded by renewed pressure from France on Pascal Lamy, EU trade commissioner, to retreat from his offer to show flexibility on agriculture, the most difficult issue in the talks.
France has insisted that EU foreign ministers debate the Doha talks when they meet in Brussels today. Mr Lamy was also due to discuss the EU's position at an informal dinner with EU trade ministers on Sunday night.
Brussels has angered Paris by offering to end EU export subsidies if the US eliminates subsidised food aid and export credits, and Australia, Canada and New Zealand curb state trading monopolies in agriculture. Such a deal is widely considered essential to progress in the round.
The Doha talks face another challenge tomorrow when ministers from the Group of 90 developing countries meet in Mauritius. Trade diplomats fear that the meeting, which Mr Zoellick and Mr Lamy are to attend, could cause African, Caribbean, Pacific and least-developed countries to harden their position, imperilling the round.
Some officials worry that the meeting could lead to a re-run of September's World Trade Organisation ministerial talks in Cancun, which collapsed after G90 members walked out. They say many of the G90's demands are politically unrealistic.
Several ministers attending this weekend's talks in Paris issued veiled warnings that G90 members' interests would suffer if the round failed.
Mr Zoellick said agreement on an overall package, including agriculture, was necessary to settle the dispute between Washington and African cotton-growing countries over US subsidies.
Although the Paris talks achieved no breakthroughs, some participants said they were more hopeful of reaching a deal by the end of this month, after which the US presidential elections and appointment of a new European Commission in November are expected to rule out further negotiations until next year.
However, one participant said it was increasingly clear that convergence could be achieved only by pushing into the future some of the toughest and politically most divisive issues.
The ministers instructed Tim Groser, New Zealand's WTO ambassador and chairman of the agriculture negotiations, to draw up a draft text by the end of this week.
Mr Groser warned WTO members late last month that the talks could still founder on differences over "parallelism" in the reduction of export subsidies and over countries' treatment of their most highly protected agricultural imports.