Asian countries have agreed to speed-up the conclusion of a more localised trade agreement after the delays finishing a competing US-led pact, in a bid to maintain regional economic integration just as a growth slowdown is hitting financial markets. Economic ministers, including trade minister Andrew Robb, agreed that the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) should be substantively finished by the end of the year potentially shifting the focus of how Asian countries will try to harmonise the existing noodle bowl of trade deals.

HA NOI (VNS) — Enterprises from Ha Noi hope to find more business opportunities in the textile, garment and footwear industries in Eastern European countries in the future. At a seminar on encouraging trade between Ha Noi and the Czech Republic held in Prague last Thursday, Le Hong Thang, director of the Ha Noi Industry and Trade Department, said last year Ha Noi's garment and textile export values reached US$1.6 billion, including $436 million from the European Union market.

The WTO could not just be a trade forum and it had to keep development in mind, Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industries Nirmala Sitharaman said in an exclusive interview with The Hindu on Friday. She was speaking about its 10th Ministerial meet in Nairobi in December. On yuan devaluation, she said India was identifying sectors that would be immediately affected. On halting discussions on a free trade pact with the EU, she said some 700 generic drugs tested in India were taken off the shelves of member-countries.

Vietnam’s livestock industry on which the livelihoods of nearly 10 million people depend will most likely be put on the chopping block by the 11 other signatory nations to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade accord. Livestock-poultry industry to suffer most after major trade pacts take effectDeputy Director Tong Xuan Chinh of the Department of Livestock Production also pointedly asserted that the nation’s farmers and ranchers would simply lack the capacity to compete in a post TPP world.

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 22 (Bernama) -- The ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) will be the buzzword as regional trade and economic ministers converge here Saturday to finalise initiatives towards closer economic integration. As the 47th ASEAN Economic Ministers' Meeting (AEM) gets underway, AEC takes on far greater importance amid the current economic slowdown that would potentially affect some economies in the absence of effective remedies to counter, for instance, tumbling crude oil prices.

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.