The latest Doha round of World Trade Organisation negotiations, which saw emerging powers such as India, China and Brazil take centre stage, fell apart in July in a potentially devastating blow to millions of the world's poor.

Rudd, who is with world leaders in China for the opening of the Beijing Olympics, said the global trade negotiations featured prominently in his talks Friday with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.

"Both Australia and China are committed to working closely together in the months ahead, during August and September, to see if our two trade ministers can work on a possible breakthrough on how we deal with the outstanding, unresolved questions of special support measures for agriculture in developing countries," Rudd told reporters, according to a Sky News broadcast.

"So much progress was achieved in Geneva on bringing a successful conclusion to the Doha round -- that is the view of both the governments of China and Australia," he added.

The Geneva talks collapsed due to a dispute between India and the US over the so-called special safeguard mechanism allowing nations to impose a special tariff on certain agricultural goods if imports surge or prices fall.

India and other developing countries wanted the mechanism to kick in at a lower import surge level than had been proposed, to protect their millions of poor farmers from starvation.

Rudd, a Mandarin-speaking former diplomat who lived in Beijing before entering politics, said his discussions with Wen emphasised the importance of the relationship between the two nations, particularly economic ties.

China's insatiable hunger for raw materials to fuel its rapidly-growing economy has driven a boom in resource-rich Australia in recent years.

That in turn has made the Communist nation one of Australia's largest trading partners.

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