Johannesburg — WORLD trade talks collapsed in acrimony yesterday after nearly five years of halting progress towards a global pact worth billions of dollars in benefits to developing countries such as SA. Officials and diplomats said resuming them could take years.

World Trade Organisation (WTO) director-general Pascal Lamy said last night he would recommend that the organisation's 149 members suspend talks.

He did not suggest a time or date at which talks could resume.

This came after talks among the Group of Six -- Australia, Brazil, the European Union (EU), India, Japan and the US -- broke down at the weekend. Gaps in the positions of key players remained too wide, said Lamy.

SA's chief trade negotiator Xavier Carim said the development was a "serious setback". Unless urgent action was taken to revive the round there would be a "huge opportunity cost". There was a lot on the table for developing countries, he said.

The World Bank has estimated that $287bn could be gained from global trade liberalisation, which would lift 66-million people out of poverty.

Developing countries would reap $86bn of the total gains.

Francois Charlot, an adviser with Mali's agriculture ministry, said: "Everybody will lose out and there are those who will lose out more, including Africa."

The Congress of South African Trade Unions said the suspension of talks was an opportunity developing nations should seize to negotiate a better deal. Spokesman Patrick Craven said the union did not welcome the collapse, but that a bad deal such as the one that was being tabled would have been worse.

South African commentators and other developing countries lay the blame at the feet of the US and EU, which they said had made insufficient moves to lower farm subsidies and import tariffs on farm products.

Craven said the main blame had to lie with the US and EU for putting their own "selfish, short-term" interest first.

Carim said: "It's not useful to enter into a blame game but the core issues from the beginning have been US domestic support and EU market access offers."

The US and EU were also blaming each other.

EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson said: "The US was unwilling to accept or, indeed, to acknowledge the flexibility shown by others. Surely the richest and strongest country in the world, with the highest standards of living, can afford to give as well as take?"

US trade representative Susan Schwab said: "Unfortunately, as we went through the layers of loopholes ... we discovered that a couple of our trading partners were more interested in loopholes than they were in market access."

Business Unity SA CEO Jerry Vilakazi said the local organised business was disappointed "but not surprised" with Lamy's statement. "The signs have always been there," Vilakazi said.

He said the suspension of the talks would give developing countries an opportunity to trade among themselves.

Trade adviser to developing countries Hilton Zunckel said there had been signs for some time that the talks were foundering.

He said the collapse of the talks would see WTO members focus on bilateral and regional trade agreements.

Peter Draper, research fellow at the South African Institute of International Affairs, said: "The question is whether it is brinkmanship underpinned by major powers' negotiating tactics that has led to the breakdown or genuine irreconcilable differences. "If it is the former, then the question will be for how long the negotiations will be suspended."