Concessions on agriculture are key to breaking the deadlock

However the ministers' statement was short on specifics and its wording revealed that they have not really moved much closer to reaching a deal.

Pascal Lamy, director general of the World Trade Organization, said the Doha round was "living, it will continue".

Leaders of developed and industrialised nations had both warned that a failure of the talks would be "catastrophic".

The talks have been seen as one of the last chances to make a decisive move to revive the Doha round before the fast-track authority of US President George Bush runs out in July.

After that deadline US Congress could block key parts of any trade deal, which would then scupper the treaty.

Mr Lamy said that the US government would try to get an extension of this fast-track authority.

This would give trade talks a "window of opportunity", he said, adding: "It's a question of months rather than quarters."

EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said "the alternative to what's on the table is not the perfect deal, but no deal at all".

Mr Lamy said ministers would try a fresh "landing approach" to reach a deal "as soon as we can as time is running out".

However, one year ago ministers also met in Davos and agreed a much more detailed and ambitious timetable to rescue negotiations, which came to nothing.

'Agricultural sensitivities'

Once again agriculture appears to have been the sticking point in the negotiations.

Mr Mandelson said any deal needed to strike "a balance between the need to advance decisively on farm trade liberalisation and the need to respect the reasonable agricultural sensitivities of the less competitive and those with large subsistence farm sectors".

	Caribbean countries want to keep their trade preferences on exports such as bananas

The negotiations were suspended last July amid sharp differences over farm subsidies and import tariffs.

Campaign groups, however, were quick to criticise the outcome of the talks in Davos.

"However the new talks are framed, poor countries will still be asked to throw open their economies in return for peanuts from the trade superpowers," said Aftab Alam Khan of Actionaid.

Failure 'catastrophic'

Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has said that rich nations should show flexibility to help conclude a vital agreement.

"We have never been so close to doing a deal like this," he told the gathering of political and business leaders.

Lula said Brazil was ready to make concession if Europe and the US were also prepared to move.

A trade agreement could help ease poverty in many countries and inject billions of dollars into the global economy, he said.

The 150 members of the WTO have agreed that the current trade round should be designed to help developing countries, while opening up new markets for industrialised nations.

The US and EU want developing countries like Brazil and India to open their economies to industrial goods and services.

Developing nations argue that the US and the European Union must cut agricultural subsidies and tariffs if progress is to be made.