(Reuters) - Canada risks getting left behind in a 12-nation Pacific trade deal because it has been reluctant to negotiate opening its markets, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said on Thursday. Vilsack also told Reuters that longstanding disagreements with Japan over rice exports would not threaten the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and that the United States and Japan were working toward a compromise.

Matt Salmon, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the US House of Representatives said he was pleased with the four-day trip to Vietnam starting from May 4.  At a press conference on the trip in Hanoi on May 7, Salmon, who headed the delegation from the US House of Representatives, expressed his support for the signing of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement. Of the 12 countries negotiating the TPP, Vietnam could benefit more from the agreement, he added.

Economist Brad Delong blogged a few days ago that it drives him crazy when people analyze trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership in terms of simple trade theory. [A]nalyzing modern trade agreements as if they were primarily Ricardian deals is likely to lead one substantially astray. One has to think, and think deeply, creatively, and subtly, about all the potential general equilibrium effects. One has to work hard to bound their magnitude.

Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy Yoon Sang-jick and Vietnam's Minister of Industry and Trade Vu Huy Hoang finalized the free trade pact in the presence of Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyễn Tấn Dũng in Hanoi on May 5.  According to this latest free trade deal, Korea will lift tariffs on a total of 409 goods while Vietnam will remove tariffs on 272 goods, all occurring in stages over the next 15 years. 

APEC head and former Reserve Bank governor Alan Bollard says he thinks the controversial Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) free-trade deal will be signed soon. The partnership involving 12 countries, including New Zealand and the United States, has been in negotiation for five years. Dr Bollard, who is the executive director of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) secretariat in Singapore, said many of the difficult areas under negotiation had been worked through this year. He said people should not be worried about the deal.

Russian Ambassador to the European Union Vladimir Chizhov said on Tuesday that his country had asked the EU to postpone the implementation of the trade part of the Association Agreement with Ukraine until 2017. The Russian ambassador gave the news at a public event in Brussels, Ukrainian newspaper Europeiska Pravda has reported, with reference to the EUobserver publication.

As Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe finished his historic weeklong visit to the United States, in addition to addressing a joint session of Congress and traveling to San Francisco, Los Angeles and Boston, Prime Minister Abe met with President Obama last Tuesday to advance work toward a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement. Together, the 12 countries negotiating the TPP, including Japan and the United States, account for 40% of the global economy.

NEW DELHI: India is working with WTO members to ensure a permanent solution at the "earliest" on the issue of food security, Parliament was informed today.  Ending months-long deadlock, the WTO in November last year acceded to India's demand to remove constraints on the food stockpiling issue."India is working with the WTO members to ensure a permanent solution at the earliest," Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha. 

Vietnamese agro-produce will have many chances to penetrate deeper into South Korea following a free trade agreement signed Tuesday, an official said after the signing. South Korea will cut import duties on many products that are Vietnam’s export staples, which will increase their competitiveness in the East Asian country, said Le An Hai, deputy head of the Asia-Pacific market department under the Vietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trade.

The government of China has pledged to contribute USD 500,000 (CHF 465,093) to the WTO’s Least Developed Countries and Accessions Programme (also known as the China Programme) for 2015. Initiated in July 2011 under the WTO’s Aid for Trade initiative, the China Programme aims to enable least-developed countries (LDCs) to better integrate into the global economy by strengthening their participation in WTO activities and helping those not yet members to join the Organization. The China Programme provides financing to support: