New Zealand Trade Minister Tim Groser has joined other Asian and Pacific ministers in calling for revival of the near defunct Doha round of trade talks.
The Doha talks to liberalise world trade followed the Uruguay round and have been going for 10 years, but are bogged down in stalemate.
Mr Groser is meeting trade ministers from APEC, the 21-member body that seeks to promote free trade and economic cooperation in the Asia Pacific region, at the American resort of Big Sky, Montana.
The delegates have called for a new approach to rescue Doha from failure.
Mr Groser says a complete collapse of trade negotiations would set off a damaging wave of protectionism around the world.
He says it would be a great perversity if the world resisted protectionism during the deepest global recession since the Great Depression but succumbed to it during the recovery.
Doha has bogged down over differences on agricultural subsidies by rich countries and tariffs on both agricultural and manufactured goods.
A senior Chinese official blamed unspecified countries' domestic politics and "shortcomings of the multilateral system" for the dire state of the Doha talks led by the 153-member World Trade Organisation.
But Assistant Commerce Minister Yu Jianhua said that China was committed to liberalisation both at home and abroad, acknowledging that the world's second largest economy was increasingly dependent on foreign trade.
