Facing a self-imposed July deadline, the trade ministers from industrialized and developing economies of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) forum may achieve agreement on some key issues that could salvage the Doha round of trade talks, officials said.

The talks collapsed in September last year due largely to disputes over cross-border investment and competition which added to a more fundamental dispute about richer states' farming subsidies, and tariffs imposed on agriculture imports by developing nations.

Ricardo Lagos, a senior government official from Chile, said there were high expectations for the June 4-5 Apec ministerial meeting to follow up on "good progress" made at recent Paris talks among 28 key World Trade Organisation (WTO) members.

"The feeling I get from delegations from many economies is that they are looking forward to Apec to really making a difference in terms of taking an extra step towards reaching that goal before the end of July," Lagos told AFP.

Officials believe consensus was evolving around the sticky issue of trade facilitation, one of four so-called "Singapore issues" fleshed out at a meeting on the Southeast Asian island state way back in 1996.

The other issues are cross-border investment and competition and transparency in government procurement.

The European Union and Japan had been pushing for all four to be included in the Doha Round, much to the chagrin of developing countries, but of late seem to accept talks on just trade facilitation based on significant customs reform.