Deadline Passes With No Draft of Trade Pact : * Commerce: But GATT negotiators believe that they can hammer out a tentative global accord by month’s end, a spokesman said.

GENEVA —  Trade negotiators suffered a setback Friday in their bid to shape world commerce into the next century when the deadline for a new draft agreement lapsed without a deal.

GATT chief Arthur Dunkel set the informal Nov. 1 deadline six weeks ago to try to force an end to years of negotiations in the 108-nation Uruguay Round of trade talks, named after the country where they began in 1986.

But David Woods, chief spokesman for the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, said Friday: “We had asked for a complete text on the table by Nov. 1. That is not the case.”

Woods said draft agreements requested by Dunkel had not been completed in any of seven negotiating areas, including one area that Dunkel himself handles--agriculture.

It was a dispute over European Community farm subsidies that scuttled a previous attempt to conclude a new global pact at a meeting of trade ministers in Brussels last December.

But Woods said missing the deadline did not mean failure for the Uruguay Round, adding: “We are quite convinced that we need to finish in November and that we can finish in November.

“November remains the window of opportunity.”

He said frenetic talks in Geneva over the past few weeks would stop while Dunkel and leading negotiators assess progress in the run-up to a meeting next week of the Uruguay Round’s steering group, the Trade Negotiations Committee.

Dunkel will present an overall assessment to high-level delegates in the committee, which is composed of all 108 participants.

“The real point is there are still significant political decisions to be made. We are going to indicate where those decisions are to be found,” Woods said.

The Uruguay Round is the most ambitious attempt yet to liberalize world commerce and provide a rule book on trade for the 21st century.

Progress has been difficult in all sectors, which include intellectual property rights, market access and trade in services. But agriculture is still the biggest headache.

Trade sources say real efforts are being made to end a simmering dispute between the EC and major farm exporters and to salvage an agreement from the talks.

There has been an increasing number of high-level meetings between EC and U.S. trade negotiators the past few weeks.

Diplomatic sources in London said the four major forces in world trade--the EC, Japan, the United States and the Cairns Group of agricultural exporting nations--met Friday in the British capital to discuss agricultural trade.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ed Madigan is due to have the first of two meetings with EC Farm Commissioner Ray MacSharry in Ireland next Friday.

If after Dunkel’s presentation to the Trade Negotiations Committee next week no progress is made on the outstanding issues, trade sources say, Dunkel may even decide to draw up a “take-it-or-leave-it” global package.