The stalling of global free trade negotiations has plunged the World Trade Organisation (WTO) into crisis, but analysts say talk of its demise is premature.
The World Bank has estimated that a successful trade round, as the negotiations are called, could give a $2.8 trillion boost to the struggling world economy by 2015, with over half the benefit going to developing countries.
But WTO ministerial talks in Cancun, Mexico, in September, billed as make or break time for the two-year-old round, ended in bitter failure, with developing and developed countries blaming each other for the collapse.
As trade envoys struggle in Geneva to find a way to resume the talks, several member countries have embarked on a hectic flurry of bilateral and regional deals as an alternative way to boost their share of world trade and spur economic growth.
The contrast between the heavy deal-making outside the WTO and the absence of activity inside, has prompted speculation that the multilateral route to reducing barriers to business, offered by the Geneva-based body, may no longer lead anywhere.
The malaise has been intensified by fierce criticisms from such key figures as European Union trade chief Pascal Lamy, who has branded the WTO's way of working "mediaeval" because of the difficulties of getting all 146 member states to agree.
But for trade officials and diplomats, the setbacks to the WTO, while worrying, are par for the course when it comes to the complex business of forging multilateral trade deals that must take account of many conflicting interests.
Also, regardless of what happens to the round, the WTO will continue to play a pivotal role in the world trading system, acting as referee in such politically charged cases as the current battle between Washington and Brussels over US steel import duties.
"That is a very big reason why the WTO is never going merely to fade into irrelevance," said one well-placed trade source.
WTO states launched the negotiations in Doha, Qatar, in late 2001, the ninth such round since the multilateral trading system came into being after World War Two.
They were initially planned to finish by the end of 2005, but most trade officials think that after Cancun they will mark time at least until the end of next year.
Decision-makers in the United States will be distracted in 2004 by the presidential election and the EU will have enough on its hands with the arrival of 10 new member countries.
But after that, most diplomats expect the negotiations on freeing trade across the global economy, from farm goods to services, to resume in earnest, with a chance a deal could be done by 2006 or 2007.
"I do not think we are yet approaching the panic stage. No negotiations in the history of trade pacts have been concluded on time," said Australia's ambassador to the WTO David Spencer.
"Despite the criticisms of the WTO, we have been here before. There have been breakdowns in the past," added a trade source, who noted that the Uruguay Round, the predecessor of the current round, took some seven years, four more than planned.