Five top WTO members -- India, the United States, the European Union, Australia, and Brazil -- were close to reaching a final agreement over the vexed issue of agriculture in Geneva on Friday.

Their final bid for an accord over the farming issue has to some extent revived discussions on global free trade that had been stalled.

WTO Director-General Supachai Panitchpakdi had on Thursday welcomed an agreement on an agricultural text among the five major WTO members. "It brings the possibility of an agreement (of the full membership) nearer," a WTO negotiator was quoted by news agencies as saying.

• India and the WTO

After several tense discussions, India, the US, Europe, Brazil and Australia broadly agreed to change the three ways that governments protect their farmers: domestic support plans, high tariffs, and export subsidies. The agreement now requires all WTO members' acceptance for approval.

Supachai on Friday circulated a blueprint which calls for the removal of farm export subsidies and plans other reforms in agricultural trade.

The draft is also lists guidelines to open up trade in industrial goods and services and to begin talks on an customs' code.

Officials and delegates to the 147-nation WTO have been meeting in Geneva this week, striving for an accord. The deadline for an agreement has been set for Friday midnight, Geneva time.

WTO members had last reached an agreement a decade ago in Marrakesh. Since then, talks collapsed in Seattle in 1999 when anti-globsalisation protestors went berserk. Even the talks at Cancun, Mexico last year failed over the issue of farm subsidies given by Europe and the US.

The current discussions are a part of the Doha, Qatar meet, but consensus on most matters seems to be eluding member nations.