WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy yesterday told WTO members that talks over the past few days have produced "a very high level of convergence on many issues" and these would be included in revised agriculture and industrial products texts to be circulated.

He told an informal meeting of the full WTO membership that he would try to capture as much of the convergence as possible in the revisions, "but obviously issues that still remain to be resolved may be left out at this stage".

Mr Lamy said he and the negotiating-group chairs would take up the other issues urgently at today's talks.

WTO spokesperson Keith Rockwell said members' comments at yesterday's informal Trade Negotiations Committee meeting showed "a degree of intensity".

"I would say many of them were of a testy nature," he said.

The daily informal meetings of the full membership took a break on Sunday 27 July, but members continued their intensive discussions in various forms.

In relation to agriculture, Mr Lamy reported "important progress" overall, with developments including:

* tropical products: broad agreement on the list of products and convergence on how these would be treated with regards to accelerated and deeper tariff cuts;

* preference erosion: broad agreement that the approach will be similar to the one used for industrial products but with some variations, and broad convergence on the list of products;

* least-developed countries: an understanding that the text on this will be identical to that in the non-agricultural market access text;