No Doha decisions from WTO meeting - report

Negotiations have been edging forward in a number of areas in the complex trade round, launched eight years ago in the Qatari capital to open markets and help developing countries prosper through more trade.

Political leaders have called for an agreement in 2010 but a deal is not yet ready to be put to ministers.

"Of course there will be a discussion, but what there will not be is a ministerial decision on options, texts, which are on the table ... It simply is not ripe for this kind of thing," Lamy told reporters late on Thursday.

Lamy and others argue a Doha deal would boost business confidence, helping pull the world out an economic crisis which the WTO says will cause global trade to contract by more than 10 percent this year.

Trade volumes in the third quarter of this year were 4.3 percent higher than in the second quarter after turning positive in July, although the long-term trend remains negative, with trade in the 12 months ended September down a record 14.4 percent, the Dutch CPB institute said.

Lamy has said he wants to hold a "normal" conference free of the dramas of late-night smoke-filled rooms, ministers storming out of meetings and violent demonstrations.

Instead ministers will look at the WTO's work in other areas from settling trade disputes to handling accession requests from non-members such as Russia and Iran, and consider how the body that referees world trade will handle new challenges such as a possible deal to tackle climate change.

In a sign that some of the tension around the WTO is being defused, Lamy held a long meeting on Thursday with Lori Wallach, director of the activist group Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch and one of the leaders of the anti-WTO protests at its disastrous conference in Seattle 10 years ago.

PROTESTS