The World Trade Organisation members are refusing to budge from their positions amidst differences over the contents of the draft ministerial declaration, released on Saturday afternoon.

Agriculture remained the most contentious area along with the Singapore issues, where the draft proposed negotiations on three of the four issues, leaving only competition policy for further clarifications.

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Indian officials complained about the process adopted in preparing the draft declaration saying the views of the developing countries were not reflected in the document.

Trade ministers were huddled in negotiations till late at night to break the deadlock as the five-day ministerial meeting was scheduled to end on Sunday. The ministers were trying to agree on a new draft by 3 pm on Sunday.

Indian officials said there was no question of diluting their position either on Singapore issues or on agriculture. A second draft is expected to be released on Sunday.

While the United States and the European Union complained of developing countries showing lower levels of ambition, largely in providing greater market access for their products, developing countries like India said the draft was an unacceptable basis for negotiations.

"We feel that this text arbitrarily disregards views and concerns expressed by us and does not lend itself to any meaningful dialogue," Commerce and Industry Minister Arun Jaitley said.

"This text as it currently stands is not acceptable to anyone," WTO spokesman Keith Rockwell told reporters.

The EU called the text an "acceptable basis for constructive discussion", while the US said the text had positive elements and areas where members needed to work "to improve and clarify".

"Now comes the crucial give and take toward a final document," US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick said in a statement.

While the developing countries have so far maintained their common stand, some indications of yielding to US-EU pressure was also visible with El Salvador walking out of the group of developing countries pushing for reduction in domestic support, elimination of export subsidies and higher tariff cuts by developed countries.

While Indian officials said the alliance was in place, some countries pointed out that members of the alliance like Chile, Columbia and Mexico were wavering in their stand.

The developed countries tried to put the blame and said the G-21 was trying to block progress.

"You really need countries to compromise if you are going to reach a successful conclusion," a US negotiator said.

EU Trade commissioner Franz Fischler said the alliance, consisting of India, China and Brazil among others, had "showed no ambition at all."