India and Australia are all set to open negotiations on free trade following a feasibility study that showed each sides would gain ASD 30 billion over 20 years from lowering barriers. According to Australian Trade Minister Craig Emerson, preliminary talks on a deal with India would kick off next week in Canberra with his visiting Indian counterpart Anand Sharma. The minister praised India government's formal agreement to begin negotiations on a free-trade agreement as a milestone in diplomatic relations.

The cooperation between Vietnam and Indonesia has been accelerated in recent years. The Jakarta Post emphasized this in an April 30 article on the growing trade ties between Vietnam and Indonesia. The newspaper cited the Indonesian Central Statistics Agency as reporting that Vietnam-Indonesia bilateral trade hit a record of US$3 billion in 2010, up 46.5 percent against 2009. In January this year, it jumped to US$326 million, up 78.4 percent from the same period of last year, it said.

China and Indonesia should work together to further expand bilateral economic and trade cooperation and push it to a higher level, visiting Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said here Saturday. The two countries should enlarge the scale of bilateral trade, step up cooperation in infrastructure construction and promote mutual investments, Wen told a forum of Chinese and Indonesian business leaders.

(Reuters) - Countries should give another push to finish global trade negotiations despite wide differences that have raised fears that the 10-year-old Doha round is dead, the top U.S. trade official said on Thursday. "It is not the time to start assessing blame. I also don't believe it's the time to give up," U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said in a speech ahead of a meeting of the World Trade Organization's negotiations committee (TNC) on Friday.

India and Pakistan engaged in talks on April 27-28 to discuss hurdles to bilateral trade under the South Asian Free Trade Area pact, and to discuss the vetoing by India, Peru, Bangladesh and Vietnam of preferential EU tariffs on Pakistani textiles which would have applied from January.

South Korea's parliamentary trade committee passed Thursday a two-way trade pact with the European Union, clearing a hurdle for the bill's ratification, local media reported. Members of the committee on foreign and trade affairs approved the trade bill 17-2, with six abstentions, according to reports. The ratification motion, submitted to the parliament in October, has met with opposition from minor parties here for concerns that it would harm the country's hog and dairy industries hit hard by the outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease.

Aiming to enhance bilateral trade with India, Morocco Foreign Trade Minister AbdellatifMaazouz today sought supply of rice and wheat from India, which is sitting on huge stocks of the food grains. India has banned exports of wheat and non-basmati rice. However, the country has shipped small quantity of wheat and rice via diplomatic route. "Our trade with India is not at same level. We want to push them because we believe we have lot of synergy between our economies," said Maazouz after meeting Food Minister K V Thomas, here.

Doha Round negotiators have met their deadline for the publishing of draft texts, the release of which director general Pascal Lamy has said allows World Trade Organization members to consider the entire Doha package. However, while Lamy praised the scope of the documents, he also warned of the issues continuing to divide negotiators, and labelled the situation "grave".

JAKARTA, April 26 (Xinhua) -- The Indonesian government scrapped 182 import duties for raw material and processing equipment, aimed at helping the development of five industrial sectors, a senior official at the financial ministry said here on Tuesday. Bambang Brodjonegoro, head of fiscal policy-making at the ministry said that such a policy that reduces the import tariffs from 5 percent to zero, would greatly help basic chemical, food, machinery, electronics and ship dockyard industries in the country.

SEOUL, April 26 (Xinhua) -- Fishery products imported from areas other than Japan have been gaining popularity among South Korean customers anxious about radiation poisoning, local media reported Tuesday. Sales of saury and mackerel between March 22 and April 24 have skyrocketed 204 percent and 80 percent, respectively, at Lotte Mart, one of South Korea's top three retail chains, compared to the same period last year, Yonhap News Agency reported, citing industry sources.