World trade fell by 12 percent last year amid the economic crisis, the worst decline in more than six decades, the World Trade Organization (WTO) chief said on Wednesday.

"World trade was reduced by 12 percent in 2009," Pascal Lamy said at a breakfast policy briefing hosted by the European Policy Centre, a Brussels-based think tank, adding it was the "sharpest decline" since the end of the Second World War.

The WTO had forecast global trade declined by more than ten percent in 2009 as the financial and economic crisis hit worldwide demand.

The International Monetary Fund said in January that global trade contracted by 12.3 percent in 2009 and is forecast to expand 5.8 percent this year.

Lamy said the worst contraction in more than 60 years made it "economically imperative to conclude" the Doha Round of global trade talks, which started in 2001 and remained deadlocked after nine years of negotiations due to lingering disagreements between developed and developing countries on market access for agricultural and industrial goods.

The WTO chief said on Monday that it was too early for trade ministers to meet at the end of March on a new push for the Doha Round, dampening hope that the trade talks could be concluded by the year end as promised by world leaders.

Deadlines to conclude the talks have been repeatedly missed.

WTO members agreed in December to hold a meeting in the first quarter of this year to take stock of the progress in negotiations. Lamy said the meeting would be "best undertaken by senior officials at this stage," signaling there has been breakthrough in the past months.