22-Jun-2007
The United States and Vietnam signed a trade and investment framework agreement (TIFA) June 21 ahead of a June 22 meeting between Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet and U.S. President George W Bush. By warming up its trade relationship with Vietnam, the United States is facilitating an alternative for US investors and businesses that want to set up production operations outside China.
22-Jun-2007
Chinese philosopher Laozi said a thousand-li journey starts by taking the first step, but Australia’s free-trade agreement team is looking decidedly footsore.
21-Jun-2007
Pakistan has announced tariff reduction on the import of 6936 items under five bilateral and regional trade agreements.
19-Jun-2007
Rows of container cranes dominate the hazy skyline of Yantian. The port, in China’s southern Guangdong province, is the world’s fourth busiest - despite few New Zealanders probably even having heard of it.
19-Jun-2007
CCTV
Mainland China is poised to expand its free trade pact with Hong Kong at the end of this month in a bid to link the two economies more closely.
18-Jun-2007
The evolving geo-strategic framework inexorably impels countries in Southeast Asia to accept China and India as major regional powers.
13-Jun-2007
Trade Minister Warren Truss has accused China and its neighbours of "unrealistic" fears that 140,000 farmers in Australia could wipe out a billion farmers in Asia if there were free trade in agriculture.
13-Jun-2007
Trade Minister Warren Truss has dubbed long-running free trade talks with China as tortuous, a day after the Chinese warned relations with Australia could suffer because of a visit by the Dalai Lama.
12-Jun-2007
It is billed as a "competitiveness" forum bringing business and government officials from across the Western Hemisphere to Atlanta with the goal of boosting trade, investment and livelihoods for the region’s 800 million citizens.
8-Jun-2007
Thailand must address its logistics problems if it wants to receive full benefit from the ASEAN-China free trade area agreement, to be effective on 2010, according to new research.
1-Jun-2007
Singapore’s founding leader Lee Kuan Yew said Thursday that the China-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) reached in 2002 offers ASEAN countries an opportunity to ride on China’s fast economic growth.
31-May-2007
For the next 10 months, the US and China will be following Taiwanese politics closely. Economic differences between political parties will be an issue — most importantly how they affect Taiwan’s political future. At the same time, Taiwan and China will be watching how the US pursues its geopolitical interests in relation to both of them.
30-May-2007
Chinese and Indian trade officials will meet in Beijing next month to discuss the viability of initiating a regional trade arrangement, Ministry of Commerce spokesman Wang Xinpei said on Wednesday at a regular press conference.
29-May-2007
Canada’s ultimate goal in its deepening economic relations with China will be a free-trade deal with the Asian juggernaut, International Trade Minister David Emerson said yesterday.
26-May-2007
Newsweek
The US-South Korea free trade agreement comes at precisely the moment when America’s military presence on the Korean Peninsula is rapidly diminishing, anti-US nationalism in South Korea is growing and China is playing an ever more important leadership role in the region. "This FTA is about countering China," says Yang Sung Chul, a former US ambassador to South Korea, now professor at Korea University in Seoul. "It’s much more significant in strategic than economic terms."
23-May-2007
Chosun Ilbo
Korean President Roh Moo-hyun said Seoul’s signing of a free-trade pact with Beijing is inevitable but the timing must be right.
22-May-2007
PECC
The most significant constraint in FTA negotiations is not international negotiation between two governments, but domestic negotiation with various domestic constituencies, such as organized farmers and labor, the national assembly, NGOs, etc. This paper analyzes the domestic conflicts that arise in FTA negotiations in the Asia-Pacific region, particularly focusing on the US, Japan, China and Korea.
17-May-2007
CCTV
China and Peru launched the first joint feasibility study in Beijing on building a free trade zone in the past two days, and pledged to conclude the study within three months, said Wang Xinpei, spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce on Wednesday.
8-May-2007
Asia Times
ASEAN is being fragmented by intensifying US-China competition for regional influence, which is putting a premium on bilateralism with the big powers at the expense of ASEAN’s ambition toward more regional multilateralism.