The waiting room for the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership was crowded even before South Korea knocked on the door last week. Seoul will join China and Taiwan in seeking membership of the eleven-nation trade bloc, while the UK is a little further along, having already begun accession negotiations. For Seoul, it is a bold step towards multilateralism and adds to CPTPP’s momentum as a big success story for the international trade system.

Vietnam’s footwear exports are likely to grow 5 percent this year although COVID-19-induced supply chain disruptions caused decreases in August and September, according to Phan Thi Thanh Xuan, Secretary-General of the Vietnam Leather, Footwear and Handbag Association (Lefaso).

India is working on at least six free trade agreements (FTAs), including one with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) that can create a gateway for Indian trade to the Middle East and Africa and New Delhi may set up a huge India Mart in Dubai to tap that market, commerce minister Piyush Goyal said on Friday.

The volume of bilateral trade has grown nearly six-fold from USD 1.19 billion in 2001 to almost USD 7.05 billion in 2018 and India ranks as Taiwan's 14th largest export destination and 18th largest source of imports, according to official data.

Vietnamese iron and steel exports during the opening 11 months of the year enjoyed impressive growth with an export value exceeding US$10 billion, according to figures given by the Vietnam Steel Association (VSA).

Vietnam is a model in Asia-Europe cooperation and can act as a bridge for the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) to get closer to the ASEAN, according to Anton Viktorovich Bredikhin, political scientist and editor-in-chief of the Russian scientific journal Arkhont.

Vietnamese businesses need to cooperate closer with partners in order to boost exports to Brazil in the last month of 2021 as the American market’s import and export activities have recorded a stable growth, according to the Vietnam Trade Office in Brazil.

It is anticipated that the import and export revenue between Vietnam and Cambodia will reach 9.3 billion USD in 2021, a sharp advance of 75% compared to 2020, according to the Vietnam Trade Office in Cambodia.

A seminar on Vietnam – India trade in farm produce and food processing was held in Hanoi on December 17.

Vietnam and New Zealand can complement each other and have huge potential for boosting trade and investment in various fields, particularly agriculture, heard at a conference held in Ho Chi Minh City on December 17.