The big emerging economies such as China, Brazil and India hold the key to success or failure of the long-running Doha round of global trade talks, Susan Schwab, the outgoing US trade representative, said on Wednesday.

The next few months, while the new Obama administration settles in, provided an opportunity “to step back, review where we are in the Doha round and to take some time to move it forward,” Ms Schwab told journalists in Geneva.