The EU trade commissioner, speaking before leaving for a three-day "mini-ministerial" meeting of World Trade Organization countries, said it would be crucial to step up momentum towards a Hong Kong meeting in December.

"The Doha round stands at an important point, and there is a need to balance the negotiations," he said, referring to the so-called Doha Development Round of WTO talks launched in Qatar in 2001.

The negotiations on a global trade agreement were launched in Doha, Qatar, in November 2001, amid a climate of international solidarity following the September 11 attacks on the United States.

But the talks soon ran into trouble, deadlocked by bitter North-South disagreements notably over the issue of agriculture, forcing the WTO to scrap a planned end-2004 deadline for the conclusion of the round.

This week's talks in the Kenyan port city of Mombasa will follow a meeting of many WTO ministers on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland last month.

"We need to capitalise on the goodwill generated at (Davos) to put the round firmly on track for Hong Kong," said Mandelson, who stressed the need for "greater ambition" notably in talks on services and non-farm market access.

"I want the meeting this week to make serious inroads to a major policy package on development," he said.

EU farm commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel, who was also travelling to Kenya, underlined the need for a comprehensive deal.