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WASHINGTON, March 24 (Reuters) - Countries remain far from a deal in long-running global trade talks that world leaders have urged negotiators to complete this year, U.S. trade officials said on Thursday.
"We share with other members a significant concern that the Doha negotiations have not made the progress we had all hoped they would achieve by now," Michael Punke, the U.S. ambassador to the World Trade Organization, said in a statement.
"The fact is that the gaps among members remain wide. The United States is fully committed to working hard in coming weeks to find productive ways forward," Punke said after a meeting of 11 key WTO member countries.
The downbeat assessment follows warnings from WTO Director General Pascal Lamy that countries must pick up the pace of negotiations to reach a deal by Dec. 31.
The Doha Round of world trade talks was launched in 2001 with the goal of helping poor countries prosper through trade.
Since the start, it has been plagued by disagreements over how much the United States and the EU should cut farm subsidies and tariffs -- and how much major developing countries should open their markets in exchange.
Although deep differences over those trade-offs remain, substantial progress has been made in other areas of the talks.
Lamy has estimated that 80 percent of the final deal is already on the table. However, U.S. farm and business groups argue that how issues in the remaining 20 percent are decided will determine whether they can support it. (Reporting by Doug Palmer; editing by Christopher Wilson)