WASHINGTON, May 2 (Reuters) - U.S. farm, manufacturing and service industry groups on Monday said major emerging economies like China, India and Brazil need to make better offers to open their markets to save faltering world trade talks.
"We continue to seek an outcome that would open markets around the world, produce new trade flows, grow our economies and sustain and create jobs. But an agreement will not be possible unless all major economies make meaningful contributions," the eight groups said.
The joint statement followed World Trade Organization Director General Pascal Lamy's warning two weeks ago that an "unbridgeable" gap in the negotiations on manufactured goods could doom the ten-year-old trade round.
The U.S. groups, which included the American Farm Bureau Federation, the National Association of Manufacturers, the Coalition of Service Industries, said it wasn't fair to blame just one area for the impasse since gaps in services and agriculture also "appear to be unbridgeable" now.
A "real change in the substantive direction of the negotiations" is needed to produce an agreement that opens up markets around the world to more trade, they said.
The Doha round of world trade talks was launched in late 2001 with the goals of helping poor countries prosper through trade. Since then, it has suffered a number of setbacks and missed deadlines as countries have clashed over formulas for cutting subsidies and tariffs.
U.S. groups aren't ready to give up on the talks, but "what we were trying to say in the statement is there isn't any point in continuing the negotiations in the current manner," said Stephen Jacobs, director of international business policy at the National Association of Manufacturers.
Still, an European Union proposal that aims to bridge the differences between the demand of the United States and major emerging economies like China, India and Brazil is worth exploring for the next several weeks, he said.
Jacobs conceded a deal was unlikely by the end of 2011, as was hoped at the start of the year.
But he insisted it was realistic for U.S. negotiators to believe China, India and Brazil can be persuaded to make better offers to open their markets even though they have been resisting for almost ten years.
"I honestly don't think for a good nine, maybe even ten, of those years our friends across the negotiating table were really listening to us," Jacobs said.
"It's finally starting to sink in" that the United States will not agree to a deal unless it gets new market access in major developing countries, he said. (Reporting by Doug Palmer; editing by Paul Simao)