(BRUSSELS) - Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on Wednesday stressed there was an "urgent need" to reach a new global trade deal in the months ahead and said such a pact was "doable."

Rudd, making his first visit to the EU headquarters in Brussels, said he and European Union officials had agreed on the need to finalise a new deal amid growing concern over the global economy and before the November US presidential election complicates matters.

"This Doha round (of trade talks) is doable," he told reporters at a joint press conference after talks with EU Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso.

"There is an urgent need, in my mind, to conclude this round and to conclude it urgently as a shot in the arm for the global economy which, as we know, has been going through a period of considerable stress through the unfolding of the crisis in global financial markets."

He stressed that "an outcome is significant for all those people around the world who depend on the forces of free trade to prevail rather than be marginalised."

Describing the next few weeks as "critical" he said an agreement was required in the "next few months."

Barroso said he shared Rudd's urgency for a deal at the World Trade Organisation.

"I believe an agreement is possible and intend very much to go on working with the Australians," he said.

The Doha round of talks, launched in the Qatari capital in 2001 and aimed at liberalizing world trade and boosting development, were due to be completed by 2004 but have stalled amid disagreements between developed and emerging economies. Some WTO members still see hope for a deal this year.

Developing countries have been pressing for greater access to agricultural markets in the industrialized world while wealthier nations are in return seeking better access for their manufactured products.

The WTO plans to convene a ministerial meeting later this month aimed at forging a North-South consensus on trade in farm and manufactured goods with the hope of wrapping up the Doha talks by the end of the year.

In Brussels Rudd admitted that there remained differences with Europe on the agricultural sector.

"We will always have things that we disagree on, we'll have difficult discussions on trade, on questions such as agriculture ... and defending the interests of Australian farmers," he said.

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