If Canada, the United States and Mexico can see eye to eye on automobiles, not only could the three countries help to rescue the troubled Trans-Pacific Partnership talks, but they could also kick-start a new era of North American co-operation, Mexico’s Foreign Minister predicts. “There are very few issues that would not benefit from a more North American perspective,” Jose Antonio Meade told The Globe and Mail in an interview. “More and more we are coming to realize that there is benefit to trilateralizing the issues.”

The European Union (EU) is keen on resuming Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiations with Asean as it views the region as a growing economic powerhouse. EU-Asean Business Council Executive Director Chris Humphrey said it was a good time to restart negotiations as Asean was moving towards economic integration and there is growing interest from European businesses to trade in the region. To date, about 11,000 European businesses have operations in Asean. "We wish to restart the EU-Asean FTA talks. It won’t be easy or quick, but needs to start.

HA NOI (VNS) — The Viet Nam-EAEU (the Eurasian Economic Union) free trade agreement was signed in May, but penetrating this large market is not an easy task, experts said yesterday. Speaking during an online dialogue at the Government website chinhphu.vn, Nguyen Hoai Nam, Deputy General Secretary of Viet Nam Association of Seafood Exporters & Producers (VASEP), spoke of the obstacles facing the local fisheries sector in a discussion on FTA Viet Nam-EAEU, in a bid to help businesses take advantage of opportunities.

The Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA) between the member states of three African regional economic communities – SADC, EAC, and COMESA – has been heralded as one of the most important developments in African regional integration.

It was supposed to be the ultimate free trade deal — a tie-up of 12 countries representing about 40 per cent of global GDP. But the American-led Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) failed at the last hurdle earlier this month, where a dispute over sugar was among the many stumbling blocks, and specifically, America's refusal to open its sugar markets to greater competition and free trade. In the complex world of free trade talks, true freedom remains an unattainable goal. Freer trade may be the result, but the benefits are often hard to measure or identify.

SEOUL, Aug. 20 (Yonhap) -- South Korea should accelerate its move to forge a free trade pact with the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), considering the economic bloc's abundance of natural resources and potential for growth, a report said Thursday. First launched in January, the EAEU is an economic body consisting of five Commonwealth of Independent States -- Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan -- with an economic size of US$2.1 trillion.

Negotiators for Canada, the U.S. and Mexico are meeting in Washington to try to break a deadlock over autos – one of the biggest stumbling blocks to a massive Pacific Rim trade pact between 12 countries. They are facing pressure from firms in the Canadian and Mexican auto sectors for a better deal. Canada’s chief negotiator for the Trans-Pacific Partnership talks, Kirsten Hillman, is heading to the U.S. capital on Thursday to join discussions that sources say are part of an effort to clinch an accord by mid-September.

South Korea and Ecuador will announce the start of negotiations for a bilateral free trade agreement (FTA) next week, the Seoul government said Wednesday. The announcement will be made Tuesday at a meeting of the countries’ trade ministers in Seoul, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. The declaration of the start of FTA talks comes nearly two years after the countries concluded a joint feasibility study in June 2013.

Ever since Jagdish Bhagwati coined the phrase ‘spaghetti bowl’ to describe the maze of overlapping preferential trade arrangements (PTAs), trade economists have been split over whether such deals are ‘building blocks’ or ‘stumbling blocks’ for the multilateral trading system. 

HA NOI  (VNS) — Viet Nam was the second largest live cattle importer of Australia in the fiscal year 2014-15 with 309,505 heads, up 136 percent, according to the Meat & Livestock Australia Limited (MLA)'s website on August 13. During the period starting July 1, 2014, Australia exported a total of 1.38 million heads of cattle, up 22 percent compared to a year earlier, and brought home US$1.4 billion, a 29 percent rise. Indonesia continued to be the largest importer with 746,193 heads last year, representing a 20 per cent increase.