A vendor displays bananas for sale along a road in the Port area of Manila in this file picture
 
The World Trade Organisation's marathon-running chief has urged his staff to eat bananas to sustain themselves through long negotiating sessions -- in which tariffs on the fruit are among the most contentious issues.

Pascal Lamy asked the WTO's roster of economists and lawyers to work "enthusiastically" and with "team spirit" during a high-stakes meeting of trade ministers that began on Monday.

"We will be asked to work long hours, to do work on all sorts of potentially unexpected assignments that may crop up, but such is our fate!" the normally staid Frenchman wrote in an e-mail to staff.

"What do I recommend during your long work hours in the next two weeks? Bread and bananas, or any other high energy diet at your disposal!" he said in the e-mail sent out last week.

About 30 trade ministers and 800 government officials are in Geneva seeking a long-sought deal on cuts to import tariffs and subsidies that skew trade in goods from cotton to cars.

Among the hot-button issues being discussed are the European Union's import duties on bananas which are higher on Latin American imports than those from other former European colonies.

Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica, Colombia and Peru want those rules overhauled before accepting a new global trade pact which requires consensus among the WTO's 153 members to be clinched.

Bananas for sale in the WTO cafeteria during the talks carry Chiquita stickers from Costa Rica.

世界貿易組織總干事日前敦促（參加貿易部長級會議的）會務人員做好打“持久戰”的準備，讓他們備好香蕉補充體力。香蕉關稅將成為本次談判最具爭議的議題之一。

“世貿組織”貿易部長級高端會議于本周一開幕。酷愛馬拉松運動的世貿組織總干事帕斯卡爾•拉米在會上要求世貿組織的經濟學家和律師們要帶著“團隊精神”“充滿熱情”地工作。

這位平日里以嚴肅形象示人的法國人在給全體工作人員的一封電子郵件中寫道：“會議期間，我們可能會被要求加班，要處理各種隨時可能出現的情況，但這就是我們的任務！”

他在這封于上周發出的郵件中說：“接下來的兩周大家就要投入到緊張的工作中去了，我能給大家點什么建議呢？那就是隨時備好面包和香蕉，或者其它高能量食品！”

約30位貿易部長和800名政府官員目前正在日內瓦舉行磋商，討論降低從棉花到汽車等各類商品的進口關稅以及導致貿易失衡的相關補貼等歷史性問題，期望達成共識。

此次會議的熱門話題之一是歐盟的香蕉進口關稅問題，歐盟對拉美地區進口香蕉所征的關稅高于其他前歐洲殖民地。

厄瓜多爾、巴拿馬、哥斯達黎加、哥倫比亞和秘魯等國希望在接受新的全球貿易協定之前先廢除這些舊條約，新的全球貿易協定需得到世貿組織153個成員國的一致同意才可生效。

會議期間，世貿組織自助餐廳所售的香蕉上都貼著哥斯達黎加的“金吉達”商標。

Vocabulary:

staid: sober（沉著的；嚴肅的）

hot-button:敏感的；熱門的