CANCUN, Mexico (AP) — Trade ministers from around the world paid private visits to each other Monday as they geared up for a major meeting of the World Trade Organisation in this Caribbean resort.

US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick held meetings at his hotel with several ministers, including his South African counterpart, Alec Erwin; EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy; Indian Commerce Minister Arun Jaitley; and Australia’s Mark Vaile.

Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Ernesto Derbez — who will chair the meeting when it opens Wednesday — also met with Lamy as well as ministers from Japan and Australia.

The WTO conference of ministers from all 146 member nations is an important staging post in the current round of trade liberalisation negotiations, which is supposed to produce a binding treaty by the end of next year.

Although details of the meetings were not immediately revealed, agriculture likely was at the top of the agenda.

The United States and the European Union last month unexpectedly produced a common position on how to liberalise international farm trade, but they have yet to persuade the rest of the world.

Developing countries, led by India and Brazil, and big producers in rich countries like Australia want bigger cuts in farm subsidies, while Japan and others want to keep many subsidies and maintain high import tariffs on sensitive products like rice.

“We need, without any question, to make some progress on agriculture, because this is an issue of great importance to virtually all our members, and it is an issue on which progress in other areas hangs,” said WTO spokesman Keith Rockwell.

US President George Bush also called the presidents of Brazil, India, Pakistan and South Africa on Monday to talk about trade.

Other issues likely to cause problems at the five-day meeting include how to cut tariffs on industrial goods and whether to start new negotiations in the controversial area of investment.

Thousands of campaigners are expected to gather to protest against the WTO over the next few days. On Monday, anti-globalisation protesters stripped out of their clothes and spelled out the words “No WTO” with their naked bodies on a Cancun beach, the first of a number of actions planned against the meeting.