This booklet by FTA Watch is aimed at disseminating information to international
civil society for the purpose of sharing the analyses and experience of the
FTA struggle in Thailand.
The president of United Parcel Service (UPS) said today a free trade agreement (FTA) between Australia and China could deliver the logistics giant a similar surge in business that followed the signing of the Australia-US FTA in May last year.
China is likely to eclipse the World Trade Organization and regional market-opening pacts to become the main driver of freer global trade in the 21st century, a prominent trade academic said on Tuesday, Reuters reported.
As economic interdependence between Korea and China grows significantly, government officials and economists find it more and more necessary to form a free trade agreement to strengthen bilateral economic relations.
Left behind for years while China’s economy was taking off, the Guangxi Zhuangzu autonomous region is finally showing signs of life thanks to Beijing’s free trade agreement with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 2002.
Indicating that the idea of a free trade agreement with China has not been abandoned, the Indian government has begun a fresh exercise to explore the pros and cons of such an accord.
AUSTRALIA and China are unlikely to start real negotiations for a free trade agreement this year, and it could take a long time to end up with a result that tackled "behind the border" issues, a senior trade official has warned.
Australian companies have raised serious concerns they may not be able to surmount Chinese regulations and restrictions ahead of the first in-depth free trade negotiations between the two countries.
China’s sustained growth will depend on how well it manages its political and trade relationships. Acquiring concessions and investing directly in natural-resource-based projects in Indonesia makes a great deal of sense for China.
The Federal Government wants to establish a powerful free trade bloc with Asia, giving Australia unprecedented economic access to almost half the world’s population.
Countries in East Asia that are parties to, or in the process of negotiating, one or more free trade arrangements not only with countries within the region but outside the region as well, are looming to take the “hub and spoke” characteristic — for example, ASEAN-China (2010), ASEAN-Japan (2012), and ASEAN-Korea, and Japan-Singapore (2002) and Japan-Philippines. Whether ASEAN would be the hub or spoke remains to be seen.
Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi on Friday said a free trade agreement with China will be signed by 2013, and that Malaysia’s exports to China surged 25 percent to a record high last year.
Malaysia’s ties with the economic powerhouse of China are set to strengthen further with the implementation of the Asean-China Free Trade Area (FTA), Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said Friday.