The APEC summit has only just ended, but like the return of hazy skies over Beijing, clouds of uncertainty surrounding the regional forum have again drifted overhead. This is familiar weather for APEC, a grouping that has faced questions about its future for well over a decade. On the face of it, China’s year of hosting APEC has given a level of attention to the regional grouping that should stand it in good stead for the foreseeable future. But if in years to come we look back to identify the year that APEC peaked, perhaps 2014 is that year.

Nov 14 (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Commerce confirmed steep duties on imports of carbon and alloy steel wire rod from China after ruling the products were being sold below cost in the U.S. market and received unfair levels of government subsidies.

The Tariff Commission slapped a definitive anti-dumping duty as much as 16.19 percent against wheat flour imports from Turkey for a period of five years affirming the preliminary findings by the Department of Agriculture that the cheap flour imports from Turkey pose material injury to local flour millers. Local flour millers, however, was not happy with the rate stressing the Commission should have imposed a higher punitive import duty.

(Reuters) - As China lobbies world leaders to back its free trade plan at an Asia-Pacific summit this week, businesses are complaining about Beijing's use of non-tariff barriers from customs clearance to quality restrictions to curb raw material imports. Amid a slowdown in economic growth, the world's top commodities buyer is facing a supply glut that has sent local prices tumbling and miners deep into the red. Inventories of iron ore, coal and cotton are bulging at ports across the country and state granaries are overflowing.

KATHMANDU: As Nepal is world’s third-largest ginger producer, efforts should be focused on fetching better export price, experts said today.  Nepali ginger in export market, mainly in India and Bangladesh, has been facing problems of non-tariff barriers like sanitary and phyto-sanitary measures due to exporters’ carelessness since ginger is exported in unwashed forms, according to Purusottam Ojha, former commerce secretary, “Ginger can fetch better price if it is exported in better packaging as well as in a processed form.” 

Has G20 protectionism been talked up too much? The latest World Trade Organization (WTO) report, published jointly with the OECD, on trade restrictive measures in the G20 group of leading industrial economies and emerging markets,  reveals that protectionism has not significantly been on the rise. Yet there are ‘murky’ areas of protectionism on which the international organisations’ report remains very sketchy. 

(Reuters) - The World Trade Organization said on Friday there was a "high probability" that a major deal on streamlining global customs rules will be implemented within two weeks after India and the United States overcame a key impasse. "I would say that we have a high probability that the Bali package will be implemented very shortly," WTO Director-General Roberto Azevedo said, referring to the Trade Facilitation Agreement agreed on the Indonesian island.

Already well known for his hostility to social media, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has now mocked the capriciousness of the cell phone market. Despite stressing the importance of investing in high-tech industry based on technological innovation, Erdoğan complained that cell phones “incite people and push them to show off” by buying the latest models as if they are just “chewing gum.” 

MANILA – The Philippines is slapping higher tariffs on Turkish flour for five years after ruling that Ankara had been dumping cheap flour in the country. In a decision dated November 11, the Tariff Commission imposed anti-dumping duties of as much as 16.19 percent on Turkish flour. The additional tariff on shipments made by 17 Turkish exporters will be in place for five years. In imposing the anti-dumping measure, the Commission said its investigation showed that “the threat of material injury to the domestic industry of such imports is imminent.”

India and the US have resolved their disagreements on food security issues, paving the way for the implementation of a global trade pact. The deal to simplify trade procedures was done at a World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting summit in Bali in Indonesia last year. But India has been blocking implementation of that agreement. It wanted assurances that its food security programme would not be challenged under the WTO's rules.