Nairobi: World Trade Organisation member countries agreed to abolish agricultural export subsidies after five days of talks in Nairobi, but failed to make progress on the long-stalled Doha Round of negotiations aimed at lowering global trade barriers.

The 162-member body, meeting in Africa for the first time, said a deal had been reached on the issue of farm export subsidies, with developed nations expected to get rid of their subsidies starting now with developing nations to eliminate theirs from 2018.

WTO director general Roberto Azevedo hailed the agreement as the ‘most significant outcome on agriculture’ in WTO history.

US trade representative Michael Froman said the deal would ‘help level the playing field for American farmers and ranchers’.

‘The WTO’s actions in this area will put an end to some of the most trade distorting subsidies in existence and demonstrates what is possible when the multilateral trading system comes together to solve a problem,’ he said.

But the gathering was overshadowed by stubborn divisions between poor and rich nations over how to proceed with the Doha agenda and even an additional, unscheduled fifth day of meetings in the Kenyan capital failed to end the impasse.

The final declaration adopted in Nairobi on Saturday said ‘many members’ reaffirmed their ‘full commitment to conclude’ the Doha Development Agenda mandates, while some members ‘believe new approaches are necessary to achieve meaningful outcomes in multilateral negotiations’.

‘Members have different views on how to address the negotiations,’ it added.

The Doha Round of trade negotiations was launched to great fanfare in the Qatari capital in 2001 with the aim of helping developing countries grow through improved trade access.

But since then, industrialised and developing nations have time and again failed to agree on the level of cuts on industrial good tariffs and agriculture subsidies.

The Nairobi conference also set up a timetable for implementing an agreement on getting rid of import duties on 201 high-tech products, whose annual trade is estimated at $1.3 billion (1.2 billion euros) a year.

Two new countries, Liberia and Afghanistan, joined the WTO this week.