Bodies representing Irish business have called for progress in dismantling a range of trade barriers in statements ahead of the World Trade Organisation talks in Cancún this week.

IBEC, the business lobby group, said success in the talks depended on reaching a balance between securing a deal to progress the round and finding a way to deal with technical trade issues in a range of sectors.

Meanwhile, ICT Ireland, the IBEC unit representing the information and communications technology sector, has called for a significant reduction in tariff and non-tariff barriers to improve market access, and simplification and harmonisation of a range of trade procedures.

Growth in international trade has underpinned the recent exceptional growth in the Irish economy, according to an IBEC statement. Among the priorities it identified for the talks are:

greater liberalisation in services;

reduced restrictions on commercial presence and the temporary movement of essential personnel;

the liberalisation of online delivery of digital content and a freeze on duties on e-commerce transactions;

improved enforcement of intellectual property rights.

IBEC also called for renewed progress on the development of legally binding rules to promote foreign direct investment flows - a contentious area in the talks, due largely to some objections from developing countries.

Meanwhile, the statement supported liberalisation of the agriculture and food markets and, importantly, says that these should be in line with the recent agreement among EU members on CAP reform.

Many developing countries are calling for bigger reductions in agricultural subsidies and this is certain to be a contentious issue at the talks this week.

ICT Ireland said companies faced significant obstacles in the free flow of goods and services .

"Regulatory and other non-tariff barriers are becoming one of the main obstacles in this regard and therefore need to be an essential element of any proposal to improve market access for ICT products," according to Mr Richard Sicard, chairman of ICT Ireland and senior trade manager at Microsoft Ireland.

At present, tariffs of 15 per cent are charged on IT goods and services exported to most countries in Latin America, South East Asia and Africa.

Coupled with this, companies often face difficulties in getting goods through customs and face difficulty from red tape in licences and regulations.

These are major impediments to market developments by Irish ICT companies - which export €30 billion annually - at a time when the industry needed to expand new market opportunities more than even, he said.

The main items ICT Ireland are calling for are:

an extension of the product and country coverage;

the elimination of so-called "nuisance tariffs" ( tariffs below 4 per cent);

global implementation of new protections on international property rights:

greater use of electronic technology as an enabler of trade.