No Doha decisions from WTO meeting - report

The two discussed the extent to which WTO rules could limit countries' scope for financial regulation, trade sources said.

The three-day Geneva conference, which opens on Monday, will still attract some protests. A coalition of activist groups, who believe WTO rules agreed by its members encourage poverty and hunger in developing states and depress labour standards in the rich, will hold a protest march in Geneva on Saturday expected to draw up to 6,000 people.

The city of Geneva, where the WTO is headquartered and which is hosting the conference, has drafted in police reinforcements from other parts of Switzerland for the meeting.

"The idea that food security can best be achieved through cheap imports has proved to be an illusion," said Armin Paasch, a trade expert at activist group FoodFirst Information and Action Network (FIAN).

Nevertheless, developing countries are pushing hard for a Doha deal as it may be their best chance to get rich nations to cut multi-billion-dollar subsidies that distort agricultural trade and squeeze poor farmers out of the market.

Developing countries are likely at the conference to renew their call for an "early harvest" of measures to help them now, such as cuts in cotton subsidies and duty-free quota-free access for their goods in rich markets.

But rich nations will argue that those should be included in the trade-offs forming the final overall deal, and many are not yet ready to put all their cards on the table in the "endgame."

"It's a Catch-22 situation. If I don't feel you're in the endgame, I'm not going to say I'm in the endgame. So it creates a situation where a number of big-ticket items are not ripe for decision," Lamy said.

Many negotiators say that Doha is dragging into its ninth year because the U.S. President Barack Obama's administration has more pressing priorities than trade, such as healthcare.

Because he will need approval from the U.S. Congress for any trade deal, Obama must tread carefully, given the hostility to trade opening among unions and other Democratic Party backers.