The World Trade Organization has opened its first ministerial conference in four years.

WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy called on WTO ministers attending the meeting "to be more united and determined to conclude the Doha Round in 2010".

Trade chiefs of the 153 member economies are due to review the activities of the multilateral trade body and gather momentum for the Doha Round negotiations.

More than 27-hundred delegates, along with 400 journalists and nearly 500 members of civil society are attending the three day conference in Geneva. The meeting is the first one after trade chiefs last met in 2005 in Hong Kong.

WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy said at the opening plenary that negotiations over the past eight years have already produced solid results. But he noted that members of the World Trade Organization need to take concrete and practical steps to break the stalemate of the Doha Round trade negotiations and close the remaining gaps.

Chinese Commerce Minister Chen Deming called on the Conference to send a positive signal to the world to help stabilize and improve the crisis-hit global economy. He said a signal should be sent to the world to "open up, advance and reform".

He stressed that the WTO is the only institutional arrangement governing global trade. It needs reform to improve its rules and functions, broaden its influence over other important international coordinating mechanisms, and assume a greater responsibility and role in governing the global economy.