Adding to its embargo of mineral shipments to Japan, the New York Times reports that China has now also blocked some of those mineral shipments to the United States and Europe, according to three industry officials this week.

(Munich) - German exporters are expressing growing anxiety about the appreciation of the euro against the US dollar and the prospect of a currency war.Germany, the world’s second-largest exporter after China, is on track for 16 per cent growth in foreign trade to €937bn ($1,307bn) this year, mostly spurred bybuoyant demand from emerging markets.But there are signs that export growth is slipping. Several industrialists told the Financial Times they were worried that export growth could be hit by the falling dollar and the prospect of more quantitative easing in the US.

Malaysia said it expects to conclude talks with India on a free-trade agreement next week that should see it obtain greater access for products including cocoa and palm oil as well as more stringent anti-dumping provisions.“Everything has been agreed,” Malaysia’s International Trade & Industry Minister Mustapa Mohamed told reporters in Kuala Lumpur today. “India is a big market, growing fast.”

New Delhi, Oct 19 (IANS) India is taking proactive measures and ready to make concessions to ensure a successful conclusion of the Doha round of multilateral trade talks, an official said here Tuesday.Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma is scheduled to meet World Trade Organisation (WTO) Director-General Pascal Lamy, chairs of the sub-groups on agriculture, industrial products and services and ambassadors of various informal groupings at the WTO headquarters in Geneva Wednesday to push for an early conclusion of the talks.

Brazil doubled a tax it charges foreigners on investment in fixed-income securities in a bid to stem gains in the real, which reached its strongest in more than two years last week.The government of Latin America’s biggest economy will raise its so-called IOF tax on fixed-income investments by foreigners to 4 percent from 2 percent beginning tomorrow, Finance Minister Guido Mantega told reporters in Brasilia today. Brazil first slapped a 2 percent tax on foreign investments in October 2009.

CHICAGO - Just after the US House of Representatives passed legislation which allows to impose trade sanctions on China to compensate for the "artificially weakened" yuan, a US economic expert warned against the Obama administration doing so.David Besanko, a US economist and professor at the Northwestern University, told Xinhua in an exclusive interview that "it is untraditional for trade sanctions to be imposed on a country by the US government due to currency policy."

MOSCOW, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- Russia is ready to restrict itself to the limitations of the World Trade Organization (WTO), only after Moscow's admission to the organization, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Thursday."Restrictions related to the accession (to the WTO) must not be applied before the accession is complete," Putin was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying.

GENEVA (Reuters) - The World Trade Organization called on Wednesday on the United States -- criticized by many trade partners for a lack of interest in trade policy -- to show leadership in global commerce.In a two-yearly review of U.S. trade policy, part of a regular survey of all 153 members, the global trade referee urged the United States to show leadership in the fight against protectionism by opening up further to trade and investment.