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By Jonathan Lynn

GENEVA, May 9 (Reuters) - The mediator of farm talks at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) said on Friday he would produce a revised negotiating text, opening the way for a meeting of ministers to clinch an outline deal in global trade talks.

New Zealand's WTO ambassador Crawford Falconer told reporters he would produce the new text by the end of next week or early the following week.

Falconer's revision, coupled with a parallel text on industrial goods, would trigger a process culminating in ministers taking the big political decisions in a deal in the long-running Doha round to open up world trade.

"The time is imminent to do a revision on the existing revision," Falconer said, speaking after a session of WTO agriculture negotiations.

The talks have taken on added urgency with the desire of WTO members to show they are tackling the food price crisis, even though a Doha deal could have only a long-term effect on supplies.

But that pressure has stiffened the resolve of developing countries to ensure that a deal removes distortions from world farm trade that they say benefit rich countries and discourages poor nations from growing more food.

STEP BY STEP

Negotiators declined to speculate on when a ministerial meeting would take place, saying simply they would proceed with the Doha negotiations "step by step".

But several developing country delegates said it was hard to envisage a ministerial meeting, originally proposed for around Easter, in the next few weeks, given the time needed for members to digest and review Falconer's new text.

WTO members have agreed to finish the Doha round, launched in late 2001, by the end of this year, to avoid the talks getting caught up in changing administrations in Washington and Brussels in 2009.

That implies ministers must meet in the coming weeks to give officials enough time to complete the detailed work on a deal.

Falconer said he would work on his revision even though members have not yet reached agreement on two important issues -- the treatment of tropical products, and preferential treatment for goods from mainly former European colonies.

Negotiations are however advanced in both areas.

"I think that convergence is potentially within reach with efforts by the end of next week," chief EU farm negotiator Jean-Luc Demarty told the agriculture negotiating session.

Falconer said he would incorporate any agreement in his text or reflect differing positions if one had not been reached.

His revision has been held up by differences over a complex technical issue -- how to shield politically sensitive farm products from the full impact of tariff cuts. [ID:nL0797723]

A proposal by six leading importers and exporters led by the United States now has widespread acceptance, although a few members still object to it and some others want to modify it.

Diplomats will return to the negotiating table, probably in the week of May 26, to discuss Falconer's text.

Unless they demand further revisions, senior officials will then come in to make trade-offs between agriculture and industrial goods, known in trade jargon as NAMA, and then ministers will negotiate the headline tariff and subsidy cuts.

U.S. ambassador Peter Allgeier told reporters he supported Falconer's proposal and timetable for the negotiating text.

He also said a series of bilateral talks between various rich and poor countries this week on opening up services such as banking and telecoms had been encouraging.

The talks were to prepare for a conference during the ministerial meeting where countries will signal their intentions to give each other confidence that concessions they make in other areas will be compensated for in services.

"We were impressed with the seriousness with which people took this and did their preparation so it shows that people are starting to think seriously about what they're going to say in the signalling conference and what they're going to provide in the revised offers," Allgeier told reporters.

But some developing countries expressed disappointment, saying they had seen little response to their key demand in services -- more freedom of movement for temporary workers.

"I don't think the U.S. and EU have anything in their pockets," said the chief negotiator of a major developing country. "They have nothing to give."

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