A new and expanding alliance of developing countries yesterday left a doomed WTO conference empty-handed but far from despondent, having flexed its new-found muscles.

Led by heavyweights Brazil, India and China, the "Group of 20 plus" voiced satisfaction with its role, and results, in emerging as a new force in pressing home demands at World Trade Organization talks.

Agricultural reform was the driving force that united the group, which started out last month as the Group of 16, soon to grow to the Group of 20, 21, and now boasting 22 members.

"We were able to show that with unity, a group of developing countries, united not on any political banner but on concrete issues, was able to present a platform of reform in agriculture," Celso Amorim, Brazil's foreign minister, told reporters.

Spanning Latin America, Africa and Asia, the alliance found itself at loggerheads with the WTO's two economic powerhouses, the US and the 15-member European Union.

Brussels bristled over the group's demands for a complete elimination of subsidies destined to help farm exporters, while Washington complained the group failed to make known the concessions it was prepared to make to boost trade flows.

With sideshots about the group's wide diversity of interests from strong importing to aggressive exporting priorities, other countries cast doubt on the group's chances of survival.

"Not only were we able to keep our unity, we were a permanent actor in the negotiations and we actually even increased our numbers by the end of the meeting," Amorim said.

But in the end, the WTO meeting, called to revive flagging international trade talks, fell apart over whether the WTO should embrace new rules on investment and competition policy.

Although India was one of the strongest opponents, rejection of the so-called Singapore issues - after the 1996 event where they were first taken up - came from a wider array of developing countries.

South Africa, another member of the 'G-20 plus', expressed disappointment at the lack of a deal in Cancun, but said it was not a failure in terms of "advancing the cause for agriculture".

"We had made what we felt was important progress, we were in the position to make further progress," the country's minister of trade and industry, Alec Erwin, told reporters.

And the group has now agreed to push on with its joint efforts on agriculture, he said.

International relief agency, Oxfam, said after the meeting broke up that richer WTO members had "overplayed their hand" and misjudged the strength of feeling and unity in the developing world.

"Poor countries, led by the G-21, have stood up to enormous pressure from the EU and US to accept a damaging deal on agriculture and market access," Oxfam said in a written statement.

Even though the conference failed to agree on a "framework" for future negotiations on farm products, the "G-20 plus" counts among its achievements its new-found recognition within the multilateral trade system.

With its proposals, the group also succeeded in prompting movement amid the traditionally entrenched positions on agricultural reform among the WTO's 146 members, Amorim said.

"We did make some concrete advances and I'm sure that we will be able to pick up from them," he said, vowing the group would continue to play a "decisive role" in the farm talks.

And announcing its newest members, Nigeria and Indonesia, he told reporters in this Caribbean seaside resort: "We emerge from this process stronger than we have come into it". – Sapa-AFP.