The meeting on Friday comes after a high-level gathering in Bangladesh at the weekend, where trade ministers and experts from 37 countries called for the "urgent" resumption of the stalled World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations.

Attending the two-day conference in Dhaka, the European Union's chief WTO negotiator Pascal Lamy said the round should restart after March or April.

And, despite concerns that a US presidential election in November will overshadow the process, US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick -- who is planning a global tour in February -- signalled Washington's commitment to the crucial talks in a letter to the WTO's 146 member states earlier this month.

Efforts to reduce world trade barriers, launched in November 2001 in the Qatari capital Doha, have ground to a near-halt since the collapse of the last WTO ministerial meeting in Cancun, Mexico last September.

The Cancun session failed after bickering over cross-border investment and competition added to a more fundamental dispute over farm subsidies in richer countries and the high tariffs on agricultural exports from poorer nations.

Participants at this week's meeting on the sidelines of the annual World Economic Forum in the Swiss ski resort Davos, would discuss the Doha round, which is due to be concluded by January 1, 2005, said Manuel Sager, a spokesman for Switzerland's economics ministry, which organised the event.

"The general idea is to analyse the situation, why it has been gridlocked and how the process can be moved forward in the coming months, hopefully leading to a (ministerial) meeting in Hong Kong later this year," he told AFP.

Sager was tight-lipped about the guest list but Canada's ambassador to the WTO Sergio Marchi -- who will be there with his country's new trade minister -- said although Lamy and Zoellick were not expected, ministers from countries such as Norway, Australia and Malaysia were scheduled to attend.