BEIJING, Feb 25 (AFP) - A European Union trade delegation left China on Friday after failing to clinch a market-opening WTO deal with Beijing, and no firm date has been set for new talks, an EU official told AFP.
China's official Xinhua news agency said the two sides had "come very close" to reaching an agreement in the four days of negotiations which ended on Thursday.
However the EU side, while accepting that "progress" had been made, did not put quite such a positive spin on the talks.
"The gap has narrowed but we are not there yet," an EU statement quoted European Commission director general of trade and chief negotiator Hans-Friedrich Beseler as saying.
European Commission spokesman Anthony Gooch said in Brussels that EU trade commissioner Pascal Lamy would not be flying to China in the immediate future to clinch a deal.
"Some progress has been made, but unfortunately not enough for (the negotiators) to see the possibility of finalizing a deal," he said.
Both sides had quietly exuded optimism that a deal could be sealed ahead of the talks, and Lamy repeatedly said he was ready to fly to Beijing at a moment's notice to sign an agreement.
Neither side has given any details about the sticking points but ahead of the talks EU officials highlighted the issues of telecoms, insurance, the financial sector and tariffs as touchy areas.
The EU is the most significant of the 13 World Trade Organisation members or groups with which China has yet to seal trade accords.
The failure to agree an EU-China deal will likely further inflame an already bitter bipartisan debate in the United States over whether to grant China permanent Normal Trade Relations (NTR).
WTO director general Mike Moore had said on a visit to Beijing last week that he was confident China would join the global trade body this year.
As well as the EU, China still has to agree bilateral trade deals with Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Malaysia, Mexico, Poland, Switzerland and Thailand.:
