While representatives of 60 countries talked about how to bolster trade links and strategic cooperation, ending with a "Declaration of Vienna" featuring an EU-Central American agreement to open negotiations on creating a free trade area, businessmen and women were busy networking.

The politicians' hopes of forging closer ties between the European Union and the Andean community of gas giant Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela and also Mercosur -- the South American common market of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay -- were dashed however.

But they agreed to double trade and investment over the next five years, a step which cheered firms still digesting the implications of South America's turn to the political left with such energy nationalisers as Evo Morales of Bolivia and anti-US Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Following talks at Vienna's sumptuous Belvedere Palace, 350 business leaders voiced their commitment to bridge two worlds through business and culture but argued more had to be done.

"Despite the fact that EU-LAC trade relations have reached an all-time high in 2005... corporate leaders at the business summit agree that the full potential of EU-LAC economic relations has not yet been realised," the business forum statement said.

The participants, including figures as diverse as Microsoft director of external research Stephen Emmott and Greenpeace international executive director Gerd Leipold, urged political leaders to focus on a range of priority issues in the lead up the 2008 EU-LAC summit in Peru.

They called for a major effort to increase trade flow with EU states accounting for only 12 percent of LAC trade and a mere 5.6 percent in the other direction last year in the face of "continued pressure from North American and Asian competitors".

The inter-regional trade cake was worth 118.3 billion euros (153 billion dollars), up 13 percent from 2004, but business leaders demanded a "more focused approach to trade liberalisation" and urged finalisation of the stalled Doha Round of WTO talks "as the most effective way to expand trade relations".

Other priorities included promoting foreign direct investment (FDI), worth 50 billion euros in 2005 -- though still down on the levels of the turn of the century -- with a view to doubling FDI by 2012.

The forum also called for measures to facilitate job creation and growth through greater competition, less regulation and greater labour market flexibility.

In their final summing up the forum also addressed environmental concerns.

"Business leaders see the energy crisis and climate change as a great responsibility but also as a dynamic business opportunity," they said, targeting development of markets for environmental technologies, renewable energy sources and biotechnology and organic food.

"The political summit made about as much progress as was to be expected but the business version was a good opportunity to share experiences and map future strategy, though obviously we can't remain immune from bouts of political uncertainty," a member of Uruguay's delegation said as the summit wound down.

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