In a bid to break the impasse over the issues that led to the collapse of the Cancun Ministerial, the World Trade Organisation Director-General Supachai Panitchpakdi will tour some of the Asian, African and Latin American countries to put the multilateral negotiations back on track.

"The WTO director-general will now tour some of the member countries, and to begin with he will go to Thailand," official sources told PTI in New Delhi.

The negotiating groups were scheduled to meet this week to continue the trade talks left behind after the failure of the Cancun Ministerial but it has now been postponed as Panitchpakdi felt that they should be held after finalisation of the broad direction of the future negotiations.

These would be finalised in consultation with the stakeholders and it was precisely for this reason that Panitchpakdi would be visiting some of the countries.

He has not planned a visit to India so far, sources said.

India is optimistic that the Doha Development round could be completed as mandated by December 31, 2004 provided the developed countries adopt a more flexible approach relating to some of the major concerns of the developing countries, particularly the issue of market access on agriculture.