ICC Chairman Marcus Wallenberg met on Tuesday in Brussels with the European Union's Trade Commissioner, Peter Mandelson, shortly after confirmation that the Doha Round trade negotiations would miss an important end-April deadline to agree on procedures for liberalizing agricultural and industrial trade.

The purpose of the meeting was to seek Commissioner Mandelson's assessment of the prospects for the Round in view of this latest setback. Mr. Wallenberg emphasized the priority that world business attaches to bringing the negotiations to a successful conclusion by the end of this year, and expressed deep concern that failure might put in jeopardy the multilateral trading system that had been such a powerful engine for increasing global prosperity over the past half-century.