* Negotiators must move beyond comfort zones
* Intensive negotiations start in mid-January (adds timetable, Davos, scheduling)
By Jonathan Lynn
GENEVA, Dec 14 (Reuters) - Members of the World Trade Organization are showing new energy and determination to reach a global trade deal but must now abandon fixed positions to clinch the agreement, the head of the WTO said on Tuesday.
WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy said it was no longer enough to have "answering machines" around the table as the WTO's 153 members respond to a call by leaders of the G20 and APEC to finish the Doha round trade talks next year.
"We are at the point where we must have negotiators, and all negotiators have to be prepared to move out of their comfort zones towards agreement," Lamy told the WTO's General Council.
He was speaking as trading powers ready for a bout of intensive negotiations starting Jan. 10, after the G20 and APEC leaders said 2011 offered a narrow window of opportunity to conclude the long-running Doha talks.
The Doha round was launched nine years ago to boost the world economy by freeing up global commerce and help poor countries prosper through more trade, and has already missed a whole series of deadlines.
One senior African official said WTO members had set themselves another tough timetable. They would have to agree draft texts by April to reach an outline deal by July -- leaving enough time to fill in the details by the end of the year.
As a result some members are already talking about a "post-Doha work programme", carrying questions such as regional trade agreements and non-tariff barriers forward to a new set of negotiations after a Doha deal, he told reporters.
Economists differ about the size of the boost to the world economy from a deal, but say it would help business sentiment by keeping markets open and resisting protectionism.
The United States wants big emerging countries like China, Brazil and India to open up more to American businesses, while developing countries say the United States, Europe and other rich countries are not doing enough to open up their markets to farm goods and end trade-distorting agricultural subsidies.
A series of meetings of small groups of ambassadors in recent months to brainstorm on ways to break the deadlock has raised hopes that a deal could be done if members are flexible. The U.S. ambassador to the WTO, Michael Punke, told Reuters last week he was encouraged by China's approach in those discussions and was waiting to see whether that would translate into real negotiations.
Lamy said he would call a meeting of the WTO on Feb. 2 to review progress on January's intensified talks.
That will be preceded by a meeting on Jan. 26 of key members -- the biggest trading powers, those representing groups of smaller countries, and those chairing areas of negotiation -- timed just before a traditional meeting of trade ministers at the Davos business summit in Switzerland.
In one indication of how seriously members are taking the renewed push, several small and poor countries spoke up at the council to warn that they could not handle too many meetings at once in the coming months. Lamy promised to ensure that there were no scheduling clashes.
Most members agreed that at some point the negotiations need to move from a focus on individual areas such as agriculture and industrial goods to a sense of what the overall package offers, allowing countries to make cross-cutting trade-offs, he said. (Editing by Sonya Hepinstall