Archive - 2007

The trade ministers of G-4 (US, EU, Brazil and India) are slated to meet in Delhi on April 11-12 at the sidelines of the US-India Trade Policy Forum with a view to breaking the deadlock in the stalled WTO negotiations.

At the eleventh hour, the United States and South Korea signed the Korea-US Free Trade Agreement (Korus FTA), the second largest free trade deal since NAFTA. President Bush and big business claim victory, but democracy has lost.

The United States and South Korea on Monday reached a major free trade agreement expected to boost both countries' exports by billions of dollars and rejuvenate the Korean economy.

A landmark South Korea-U.S. free trade agreement (FTA) on Monday drew mixed responses among civic groups here, with opponents vowing an all-out campaign to prevent it from being passed by the National Assembly and proponents welcoming it as a means of boosting growth.

At least 61 non-government organizations, including eight from the Philippines, asked the United States Congress to block the expansion of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

The Group of 20 (G20) developing countries at the WTO said Thursday that trade-distorting subsidies from the developed countries are at the root of the critical situation of cotton for developing countries, and is one of the major inequalities in international agricultural trade.

Twelve influential members of the United States Congress, in a letter to US Trade Representative Susan Schwab, have urged the 'immediate reconsideration' of certain TRIPS plus provisions in US Free Trade Agreements so as to ensure adherence to the World Trade Organization's 2001 Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health.

After years of protracted negotiations among WTO members on having an emergency safeguard mechanism to deal with adverse economic impacts as a result of services liberalization in the WTO, the ASEAN group (excluding Singapore) has tabled a proposal on it.

Poor cotton farmers in West Africa are facing new pressures from low commodity prices and from privatization programs being advocated by international donors such as the World Bank, the international aid agency Oxfam warned Thursday.

The European Union and members of the NAMA-11 coalition - including South Africa, India, Brazil and Egypt - yesterday differed with the United States over the pace and timing of sectoral tariff elimination talks in the Doha Development Agenda nonagricultural market access architecture.