Beijing and Washington yesterday called for the revival of the stalled Doha Round of global trade talks.

The joint call was made by Minister of Commerce Bo Xilai and visiting US Trade Representative Susan Schwab, according to a statement released by the Ministry of Commerce.

Bo said China is ready to push, along with other countries, for an early resumption of the World Trade Organization (WTO) talks.

He said he "regrets the suspension of the Doha Round of talks," because setting up a just multilateral trade regime benefits a majority of WTO members.

Schwab said the United States would make effort for the restart of the Doha talks, and called for more attention to be paid to market access and development issues, the Ministry of Commerce statement said.

The Doha Round was suspended in late July after six major members Australia, Brazil, the European Union, India, Japan and the United States failed to reach a consensus on agricultural and industrial trade.

The breakdown of the talks, which were seen as a once-in-a-generation chance to boost growth and ease poverty around the world, is a blow to both developing and developed economies.

Bo wants developed countries to make more efforts to restart and get the talks back on track.

Schwab said China, which she described as the largest beneficiary of the multilateral trade regime, should play a bigger role.

Her spokesman, Sean Spice, said after the talks that "there was a general agreement that market access is an extremely important component" for both the United States and China.

Schwab warned last week in the United States that "if we can't get a breakthrough by January, February, March ... it's going to be several years before we get a breakthrough."

The protection of intellectual property rights, China's market-economy status and the application for US business visas also topped the meeting of the two trade officials. 

By Jiang Wei (China Daily)