(VOVworld) – Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung will arrive in Kazakhstan on Friday to attend the signing ceremony of the Vietnam-Eurasian Economic Community Free Trade Agreement. The free trade agreement with Vietnam - the Community’s first – creates a stable and favorable legal framework for economic ties between Vietnam and the Eurasian Economic Community.

Chancellor Angela Merkel tried to drum up support in Germany for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) ahead of the G7 summit she is hosting in June, saying in an interview on Saturday she hopes it will be finalised by 2017. Merkel told the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper it was important that talks between the European Union and United States lead to an accord before U.S. President Barack Obama leaves office in January 2017.

TOKYO: Japan and the European Union on Friday (May 29) agreed to speed up talks over a long-stalled Free Trade Agreement, while voicing concerns over China's territorial claims in the South China Sea. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and European Council President Donald Tusk in the latest annual get-together between the leaders of the two big trading partners.

A new study by Policy Support Unit of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) group of countries has concluded that free trade agreements (FTAs) give rise to a significant boost to a country's exports in the first years after their introduction.

The WTO has launched a new website which will serve as a focal point for members, donors, and others seeking information on the new Trade Facilitation Agreement Facility (TFAF).

HA NOI (VNS)  — Wood exports were the biggest earners in Viet Nam's farm export sector in the first quarter of this year, hitting nearly US$2.1 billion; a year-on-year increase of 6.2 per cent. According to the General Department of Viet Nam Customs, the US continued to be the largest importer of Vietnamese wood and wooden products, with a value of $762 million. Japan and China followed with import values of $306 million and $289 million respectively.

Casting around for a good reason to pass the Trans-Pacific Partnership into which Barack Obama’s administration has put so much lobbying effort, some economists have alighted upon the potential development benefits to the pact’s poorer members and particularly Vietnam.

HA NOI (VNS) — Viet Nam exported agricultural, forest and fisheries products worth US$11.4 billion in the first five months of this year, the agriculture and rural development ministry's latest report said. This is a year-on-year decrease of 7.3 per cent. In May alone, the sector recorded an export turnover of $2.37 billion.

Chief negotiators from countries involved in the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade initiative wrapped up their latest round of negotiations in Guam on Wednesday, without setting a date for a ministerial meeting to reach a broad agreement. The 12 countries in the negotiations have called off a ministerial meeting scheduled for this month, amid uncertainties over passage of a key U.S. bill for fast-tracking the trade deal, seen as necessary before reaching a TPP deal.

MOSCOW, May 27. /TASS/. Russia intends to continue reconciling its economic policy with norms and principles of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Wednesday. "The norms that the Eurasian Economic Union is sticking to today, consider various international rules, including the WTO principles; the legal groundwork for Russia’s economic policy will be further tied with implementation of a number of WTO and EAEU principles at the national level," he said.