EU trade chief invited to G20 'WTO review' summit

BRUSSELS, Aug 7 (Reuters) Europe's trade chief has received an invitation from Brazil to attend a summit of developing states as the first bid to revive stalled world trade talks after their collapse in July, an official said on Monday.

The G20 group, led by India and Brazil, hopes to discuss ways to convince developed nations to conclude the Doha Round of World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks, suspended last month after major powers failed to broker an agriculture deal.

The developing country alliance planned to hold what was billed as a ''stock-taking summit'' in Rio de Janeiro on Sept. 9 and 10, to which Brazil's Foreign Minister Celso Amorim had invited EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson, said the official at the European Commission, the EU's executive arm.

''Assuming a strong (WTO) ministerial presence, he will attend,'' the official told Reuters. The Commission negotiates foreign trade policy on behalf of the 25-country bloc.

''(Mandelson has said) that it's an important opportunity to discuss and review the next steps towards a revival of the negotiations,'' he said, adding that the G20 may have also issued a similar invitation to U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab.

WTO chief Pascal Lamy was forced to suspend the Doha Round, named after the Qatari capital where it began in 2001, saying there was no hope of meeting an end-year deadline for a deal.

The round has been billed as a once-in-a-generation chance to inject up to 0 billion a year into the world economy and lift millions out of poverty. It was already well behind schedule when the talks collapsed in Geneva.

Mandelson has said the Doha Round will remain a central priority of European Union trade policy, promising that the bloc will push for measures to help developing countries regardless of the delay in the negotiations.

REUTERS DH RK0125