Indian Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath (File photo)

India's trade minister says rich countries must be flexible if negotiations on a new global trade treaty are to be revived.

Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath says he has been speaking with trade ministers of several other countries in an effort to revive the talks.

Trade ministers from the United States, the European Union, Japan, Australia, India and Brazil halted the talks last month because of differences over farm subsidies. The World Trade Organization or WTO organized the talks.

Nath says the talks collapsed because the United States and EU sought to backtrack on their commitments to reduce agricultural subsidies and tariffs in coming years to help poor countries.

He said the rich countries want greater market access for their exports before helping poorer nations. He said that WTO talks could go no where until that mind-set changed.

Some information for this report was provided by AFP and AP.