DAVOS - French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Thursday that he remained hopeful of reaching a global digital tax deal, despite an initial failure to strike an agreement on the issue with the United States.

"We are moving in the right direction," Le Maire told Reuters TV at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort of Davos, adding he still thought France was close to being able to reach a deal with the United States on the matter.

On Wednesday, France and the United States failed to agree on how to push forward a global rewrite of decades-old cross-border tax rules, although they agreed to set aside a bilateral row on digital taxation.

(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta and Marine Pennetier; Editing by Kim Coghill) ((sudip.kargupta@thomsonreuters.com; +33 1 49 49 53 84;))