* WTO seeks meeting without Doha drama
* Ministers to review full range of activities
* Protests planned
(Adds trade volume data, Lamy quote)
By Jonathan Lynn
GENEVA, Nov 27 (Reuters) - Delegates attending the World Trade Organisation's first ministerial conference for four years will review the WTO's activities but take no decisions on its long-running Doha round, Director-General Pascal Lamy said.
Negotiations have been edging forward in a number of areas in the complex trade round, launched eight years ago in the Qatari capital to open markets and help developing countries prosper through more trade.
Political leaders have called for an agreement in 2010 but a deal is not yet ready to be put to ministers.
"Of course there will be a discussion, but what there will not be is a ministerial decision on options, texts, which are on the table ... It simply is not ripe for this kind of thing," Lamy told reporters late on Thursday.
Lamy and others argue a Doha deal would boost business confidence, helping pull the world out an economic crisis which the WTO says will cause global trade to contract by more than 10 percent this year.
Trade volumes in the third quarter of this year were 4.3 percent higher than in the second quarter after turning positive in July, although the long-term trend remains negative, with trade in the 12 months ended September down a record 14.4 percent, the Dutch CPB institute said.
Lamy has said he wants to hold a "normal" conference free of the dramas of late-night smoke-filled rooms, ministers storming out of meetings and violent demonstrations.
Instead ministers will look at the WTO's work in other areas from settling trade disputes to handling accession requests from non-members such as Russia and Iran, and consider how the body that referees world trade will handle new challenges such as a possible deal to tackle climate change.
In a sign that some of the tension around the WTO is being defused, Lamy held a long meeting on Thursday with Lori Wallach, director of the activist group Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch and one of the leaders of the anti-WTO protests at its disastrous conference in Seattle 10 years ago.
PROTESTS
The two discussed the extent to which WTO rules could limit countries' scope for financial regulation, trade sources said.
The three-day Geneva conference, which opens on Monday, will still attract some protests. A coalition of activist groups, who believe WTO rules agreed by its members encourage poverty and hunger in developing states and depress labour standards in the rich, will hold a protest march in Geneva on Saturday expected to draw up to 6,000 people.
The city of Geneva, where the WTO is headquartered and which is hosting the conference, has drafted in police reinforcements from other parts of Switzerland for the meeting.
"The idea that food security can best be achieved through cheap imports has proved to be an illusion," said Armin Paasch, a trade expert at activist group FoodFirst Information and Action Network (FIAN).
Nevertheless, developing countries are pushing hard for a Doha deal as it may be their best chance to get rich nations to cut multi-billion-dollar subsidies that distort agricultural trade and squeeze poor farmers out of the market.
Developing countries are likely at the conference to renew their call for an "early harvest" of measures to help them now, such as cuts in cotton subsidies and duty-free quota-free access for their goods in rich markets.
But rich nations will argue that those should be included in the trade-offs forming the final overall deal, and many are not yet ready to put all their cards on the table in the "endgame".
"It's a Catch-22 situation. If I don't feel you're in the endgame, I'm not going to say I'm in the endgame. So it creates a situation where a number of big-ticket items are not ripe for decision," Lamy said.
Many negotiators say that Doha is dragging into its ninth year because the U.S. President Barack Obama's administration has more pressing priorities than trade, such as healthcare.
Because he will need approval from the U.S. Congress for any trade deal, Obama must tread carefully, given the hostility to trade opening among unions and other Democratic Party backers. ((For full coverage of trade talks, click on WTO conference details are at http://r.reuters.com/cym73g ) "The Global Food Challenge" is at http://r.reuters.com/bym73g)) ((jonathan.lynn@reuters.com; +41 22 733 3831; Reuters Messaging: jonathan.lynn.reuters.com@reuters.net ))