Regretting the 'stalemate' at the Cancun WTO Ministerial Conference last month, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on Tuesday asserted that rule-based and fair multi-lateral trading system should remain the goal.

But while we search for this ideal, regional trading arrangements offer immediate advantages, particularly for geographically contiguous regions," he told the ASEAN Business and Investment Summit in Bali, Indonesia.

The summit is being attended by leaders of the ten-nation ASEAN, Chinese Premier and Japanese Premiers Wen Jiabao and Junichiro Koizumi and South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, who, like India, are full dialogue partners of the key regional grouping.

Vajpayee said: "In spite of the stalemate at the Cancun Ministerial Conference, a rule-based and fair multi-lateral trading system should remain our goal."

Referring to regional trading arrangements, he said: "They can provide our domestic industry and agriculture with a valuable learning period, before being exposed to the far greater competition of global free trade."

The Cancun meet had collapsed because of serious differences between the developed and the developing world on the high level of agricultural subsidies in the US and European countries.

India, China, Brazil and South Africa, which are part of G-22 Grouping, came together to strongly oppose the moves of the rich nations to bring in new subjects on the agenda of the basis of the Singapore issues.