Trade ministers of 21 Asia-Pacific economies opened talks here Friday focused on adopting a "strong" statement urging WTO members to return to the negotiating table by July to devise new rules governing global trade.

The 148-member WTO talks on the so-called Doha Development Agenda collapsed in the Mexican city of Cancun in September last year after a bitter dispute between developing and industrialized states.

"I think all of us should try and make a supreme effort to get it done, back on track by July," Singapore Trade Minister George Yeo told AFP as he entered into talks among ministers of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) forum.

"It (the Doha issue) will be a key topic of discussion," he said, without elaborating.

Senior officials accompanying ministers to the talks at the Chilean venue in Pucon, a resort town

south of Santiago, said the meeting would adopt, aside from a joint com-muniqe, a "special" statement on the Doha round on Saturday.

"The ministers will work on the stand alone document at their meetings today and tomorrow and hopefully send a strong message that all WTO members should be back to the table by July," said an Asian official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"July is just an interim milestone but let's hope that this statement will give the much-needed push," the official said.

"As we are a diverse and consensus based group, the Apec statement will not tie any member to any position but at least it will be united call that we should come to grips with the Doha agenda by a target date, "he added.

Apec economies, which control nearly half of world trade, include industrialized nations the United States, Japan, Canada, Australia, South Korea and New Zealand and top exporters China and key

Southeast Asia nations.

Chile's senior Apec official Ricardo A. Lagos told AFP that the ministerial statement was expected to stress on market access and export subsidies and reflect "hopefully" an agreement on the so-called Singapore issues.

The issues, fleshed out at a WTO meeting on the Southeast Asian island in 1996, are trade facilitation, cross border investment and competition and transparency in government procurement.

WTO chief Supachai Panit-chpakdi is here to brief Apec ministers on the latest negotiations on trade liberalization underway among members at the global trade watchdog's headquarters in Geneva.

Supachai had said that the ministers should give an added push to the negotiations, particularly in areas such as agriculture, manufacturing and services as well as the Singapore issues.

Supachai said WTO was itself crafting a draft statement to be

finalised by the end of July on a package of trade liberalization measures.

It "hopefully will be a framework agreement for key market access areas of agriculture and non-agriculture," he said.

The Cancun talks collapsed after a bitter dispute between developing and industrialized states over cross border investment and competition, which added to a more fundamental dispute about richer states' farming subsidies, and tariffs imposed on agriculture imports by developing economies.

United States Trade Representative Robert Zoellick told reporters that other WTO members suggested that other members make attractive offers after the United States and Europe gave concessions on export subsidies.

This is "a moment of a strategic economic opportunity," Zoellick said, adding that broad trade liberalization would give momentum to the global economic recovery.