12-Jan-2007
The Australian
Australia has dismissed plans for an APEC free trade agreement, arguing that member countries are too busy cementing other trade deals to give it serious attention.
16-Aug-2006
Financial Times
The indefinite suspension of the Doha round of world trade talks creates big risks for the world economy. A new explosion of discriminatory bilateral and regional agreements is likely to substitute for global liberalisation, eroding the multilateral rules-based system of the World Trade Organisation.
29-May-2006
Thanh Nien News
The ongoing APEC senior official meeting (SOM II) will discuss Sunday existing and new policies for regional trading agreements and free trade agreements (RTA/FTA), reports from the APEC secretariat said.
18-Nov-2005
Associated Press
As world leaders gathered Friday for their annual talks on building a free trade zone that circles the Pacific, they were also spending time in sideline huddles forging one-on-one agreements.
18-Nov-2005
Financial Times
Criticised by business leaders and alarmed by the possible failure of next month’s world trade talks in Hong Kong, Asia-Pacific governments are acknowledging for the first time the dangers of the tangled "spaghetti bowl" of bilateral trade deals they have spawned in the past few years.