July 3, 2009  U.S. celebrates Independence Day.

July 2, 2009  WTO.  The World Trade Organization has warned of rising protectionism amid the economic crisis as it sharply cut its forecast for trade volumes of developed and developing economies this year. Making its latest assessment of the global economic situation, the WTO on Wednesday also observed that the sharp contraction of the global economy registered in the first quarter this year "appears to be slowing down". However, citing risks including rising unemployment and oil prices, the organization lowered its forecast of global trade contraction to 10.0 per cent from its March forecast of a shrinkage of 9.0 per cent. Trading volumes of developed economies are now expected to shrink by 14.0 per cent instead of 10.0 per cent while those of developing economies would contract 7.0 per cent, rather than the earlier forecast 2.0-3.0 per cent. Amid the economic crisis, the WTO said in its report to member states that there has been a growing number of instances of protectionism.

July 1, 2009  China.  China has postponed today's deadline for personal-computer makers to include a state-backed anti- pornography software on new PCs after U.S. officials and business groups urged it to scrap the rule.  The government is delaying mandatory installation of the Green Dam Youth Escort software after PC makers demanded more time, the Beijing-based Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Business groups representing U.S. technology companies including Hewlett-Packard Co., Dell Inc. and Microsoft Corp. told Premier Wen Jiabao last week that Green Dam may undermine computer security. The software, which the Chinese government said is designed to block pornographic sites, also limits access to political content, tightening censorship of the world’s biggest Web market by users, university researchers said.

June 30, 2009  WTO.   Big developing nations could use waivers under a new World Trade Organization deal to block each other's trade, a senior WTO diplomat stated yesterday, potentially complicating the long-running talks - or throwing them open. The United States and other rich countries have been saying that in order to take the WTO's Doha round forward they need to know where big emerging countries like Brazil, China and India would use the tariff cut exceptions they would be entitled to. The Swiss WTO ambassador who chairs negotiations on freeing up industrial goods, said the growing volume of South-South trade meant some developing countries may use their waivers to block competitive imports from each other rather than targeting sales from rich countries.

The Doha talks were launched in the Qatari capital in late 2001 to help poor countries prosper through trade, and have faltered since then, particularly over differences between rich and developing nations. The sectoral deals - one issue on which a meeting of ministers collapsed last July - were showing signs of progress. Sectoral deals would be voluntary agreements among groups of countries to eliminate duties completely or almost entirely in individual industrial sectors like chemicals or bicycles, beyond any overall reduction in tariffs that all WTO members agree. The United States sees sectoral deals as offering the best chances of new export opportunities for American business. But while some developing countries are also keen to propose them, China and some other big emerging countries are wary of being pushed into something going beyond the overall deal. The proponents of sector deals in fish, electronics, textiles, chemicals, machinery, forestry products, jewelry and healthcare had been crunching tariffs and trade data to show other countries exactly what was at stake.

June 29, 2009  WTO to meet.   It has been announced that the World Trade Organization (WTO) will hold its seventh Ministerial Conference in Geneva from 30 November to 2 December, 2009. This conference will be different from the previous conferences, mainly because the meeting is not intended as a negotiating session, but rather a regular gathering of ministers to engage in a broader evaluation of the functioning of the multilateral trading system. The general theme for the discussion shall be “The WTO, the Multilateral Trading System and the Current Global Economic Environment”.  The Marrakesh treaty establishing the WTO mandates a regular ministerial conference at least once in two years, however, the last conference was held three and a half years ago in Hong Kong in December 2005.

June 29, 2009  Airbus.  The U.S. is prepared to take its case over alleged unfair subsidies for aircraft under development by the European aerospace giant Airbus to the World Trade Organization next week. Germany, France, the UK and Spain are in talks to provide 3.3 billion euros in loans to support the development of Airbus's A350 long-range aircraft, which would compete with Boeing Co.'s 787 and 777 models. The Airbus partners on June 15 agreed to give themselves a month to decide on reimbursable government funding for the long-haul A350. France said it was considering aid of 1.4 billion euros, and Germany up to 1.1 billion.

Airbus is the world's largest producer of civil jetliners, having overtaken former market leader Boeing. The two companies are locked in a transatlantic trade row over subsidies at the WTO, with both accusing the other of taking illegal government handouts. In January 2009, Airbus said a French plan to provide up to 5 billion euros to support plane purchases would help secure aircraft deliveries as government aid for the ailing economy spreads beyond banks and cars.

June 26, 2009  Doha.  Trade ministers want to point to concrete progress in the long-running Doha round to free up world trade in time for September's G20 summit in Pittsburgh, Australia stated yesterday. Trade Minister Simon Crean, speaking after a meeting of his foreign counterparts in Paris hosted by Australia, said completing Doha would help pull the world out of the economic crisis because trade itself was an economic stimulus. "The result of today's meeting was a restatement by ministers that we now are in the end-game of negotiations," Crean told a news conference. The Doha round was launched in late 2001 to help poor countries prosper through trade, but in the nearly eight years since then the talks have stumbled repeatedly as trading powers clashed over proposals to cut tariffs and subsidies on goods from food to chemicals. Crean said there was a new willingness to work together on a deal, spurred by the recession that was hitting developing countries hardest.

June 25, 2009  EU and South Korea.  South Korea and the European Union are closing in on a free-trade deal, it was stated today. The ambitious two-year-old talks had been slowed by disagreement over issues like the right of South Korean exporters to reclaim duties paid on imported components and the definition of where, for the purpose of trade agreements, goods had been made. A dispute over how quickly the E.U.’s 10 percent tariff on imported cars should be eliminated has been partly settled. With bilateral trade last year of more than €65 billion, or $91 billion, South Korea is one of the E.U.’s largest trade partners, and Europe is South Korea’s second-largest export market. At a meeting in Seoul last month, E.U. and South Korean officials said “considerable progress” had been made and that they “looked forward to an early conclusion” of the deal.

South Korea has grown over a generation to become the world’s 12th-largest exporter and the 15th-largest economy. With World Trade Organization negotiations currently stalled, Mr. Han said, “the next best thing is to have bilateral trade agreements.” Washington and Seoul reached a trade deal in 2007; it awaits only U.S. congressional approval. Talks with Japan have stalled, but South Korean diplomats have laid the groundwork for negotiations on an agreement with the Association of South East Asian Nations, and there is talk of a deal with Australia.

June 24, 2009  China.  China’s government states that it will contest complaints to the World Trade Organization from the European Union and the U.S. claiming China unfairly limits exports of raw materials such as magnesium, coke and zinc.  The EU and U.S., lodging their third joint complaint against China, alleged export taxes keep material costs lower for domestic steel and manufacturing companies, hurting foreign competitors. The case is the first WTO complaint brought by the Obama administration, which came to office vowing to take a harder line against trade barriers, especially in China.  U.S. steelmakers and unions complain that cheap government loans, tax rebates and grants give Chinese manufacturers an unfair advantage. Trade tensions between the two countries span product safety and calls for a stronger yuan.

The complaint, filed in Geneva yesterday, accuses China of using taxes or quotas to discourage the export of bauxite, coke, yellow phosphorous, magnesium, silicon metal and zinc. China is either a major supplier or the only source of those materials, according to the EU. China scrapped or reduced yesterday export taxes on some fertilizer chemicals, including yellow phosphorous.  China, the world’s fastest-growing major economy and biggest consumer of metals, uses coke to make steel and zinc to galvanize the metal. It refines bauxite into alumina, which is then smelted into aluminum. China is the biggest source of U.S. imports, and the EU’s second-largest trading partner.

June 23, 2009  Australia.  Australia will more than double assistance for trade to developing countries through the World Trade Organization (WTO) the Minister for Trade, announced today.  This year the Australian Government will provide the WTO .5 million for development assistance activities, up from million last year. The WTO Doha Development Agenda Global Trust Fund will receive .75 million, up from million last year and 0,000 the year before. The Global Trust Fund provides practical assistance to some of the world’s least developed countries, enabling them to take part in and benefit from the WTO Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations.

June 23, 2009 U.S. and China.  U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk is expected to launch a WTO case against China on Tuesday when he holds what his office called a major news conference regarding U.S.-China trade. Kirk's office gave no details in announcing the 9:15 a.m. EDT/1315 GMT session with reporters. But industry sources said they expected the United States and the European Union would both announce a World Trade Organization case against China over its export restrictions on raw materials. The expected action by the United States and the EU follows their failure to persuade China to reduce its export tariffs and raise quotas on materials such as zinc, tin, tungsten and yellow phosphorous.

June 22, 2009  WTO and beef.  Beef-producing states told the World Trade Organization on Friday they feared a deal between the United States and the European Union to open up European markets to high quality beef would hit their exports. The complaints, highlighting commercial sensitivities in the financial crisis, could lead to a new trade dispute over a deal hailed by Washington and Brussels as a breakthrough in their own often fraught economic ties. The United States and the European Union reached a provisional agreement on May 6 to end a two-decades-long row over an EU ban on hormone-treated beef by increasing the European import quota for other beef. Brussels says the new quota, whose details are still being worked out, is open to all WTO members. Some beef exporters, mainly from Latin America, fear it has been designed to let in U.S. beef at their expense. "The Memorandum of Understanding in question ... defined high-quality meat solely as those of the type exported by the USA," Uruguay said in a statement to the WTO's dispute settlement body. Beef accounts for 25 percent of Uruguay's exports and the EU is its biggest market, according to Montevideo. Under the deal reached with the United States, the EU will provide additional duty-free access for 20,000 tons of non-hormone-treated beef a year for three years, rising to 45,000 tons in the fourth year. This is in addition to the current import quota of 60,000 tons, on which exporters pay duty of 20 percent. Imports outside the quota pay 100 percent.

The United States and European Union praised their deal as a pragmatic way of dealing with trade problems. As a result, the United States dropped its plans to impose $116.8 million in retaliatory duties on European products, which it was entitled to do because the WTO had found the EU's ban on hormone-treated beef to be in breach of the rules. Uruguay also argued that, under WTO rules, compensation for trade restrictions should be only temporary and compliance with the rules was preferable. The EU said it would notify WTO members in early August of the details of the new quota. It would cover beef from cattle with a special diet, and other objective characteristics. Australia, Argentina, Brazil, India, New Zealand, Nicaragua and Paraguay voiced their concern at the deal.

June 19, 2009  WTO.  The United States and India may be able to find a way to revive World Trade Organization talks that collapsed last year after the two nations could not find common ground, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk has stated. "India and the United States may be uniquely positioned to try to breathe new life into the Doha development round" of WTO talks, Kirk told a business conference before meeting Anand Sharma, his counterpart from India. The Obama administration has given few details about how it plans to proceed on Doha. Kirk has repeatedly said that better-off developing nations like India need to provide more market access for the talks to advance. Kirk said he and Sharma, both new to their positions, "really hit it off" when they met last week for the first time at a trade meeting in Bali. Kirk acknowledged boosting trade is "a very tough sell" domestically when people are losing jobs, but said the recession provides a chance to demonstrate the negative impacts of declining trade and "make a more critical case for the benefits and value of a free, open rules-based trading system.

June 18, 2009  WTO.  The head of the World Trade Organization is hopeful long-running trade talks can be wrapped up next year. Trade ministers came close to reaching a deal on the Doha round of talks in July 2008, but they collapsed because of a dispute between Washington and emerging economies, spearheaded by India, over proposals to help farmers in poor nations. The Cairns Group, 19 nations accounting for more than 25 percent of the world's agricultural exports, said last week that trade officials from the United States, Europe and India had shown fresh resolve to conclude the Doha talks launched in 2001. "I am optimistic that Doha will be concluded in 2010," Pascal Lamy, the WTO's director general stated.  The Doha deal is estimated to be worth $150 billion for the world economy and considered even more important now that the world faces its worst economic crisis in decades.

June 17, 2009  U.S. and China.  The U.S. looks set to score its first trade victory against Beijing later this week when a World Trade Organization panel condemns Chinese restrictions on American CDs, DVDs, books and computer software. Two officials said the ruling would uphold a number of key U.S. arguments that China was violating international trade rules by forcing some American audiovisual goods to be distributed through Chinese state-owned companies. The WTO will also find against Beijing for restrictive requirements on foreign makers of products from magazines to video games that do not extend to Chinese competitors. But it would fall short of a complete victory, with the three-member panel ruling that China was within its rights to insist that American-made films go through one of two designated distributors to be shown in Chinese cinemas, a requirement not demanded of Chinese movies. The WTO officials base their knowledge on a confidential, interim decision in April that they said would not be changed. WTO panels almost always maintain their interim findings in final rulings. The WTO launched the investigation in November 2007, interceding in the fourth U.S.-China dispute in little over a year as the Bush administration stepped up pressure on Beijing. The cases came amid demands from Congress for action on America's soaring trade deficits and lost manufacturing jobs - which some in the U.S. blamed in part on unfair trade practices by China and other foreign nations. The Geneva-based trade body has since backed the U.S., Canada and 27-nation European Union by ruling that China was illegally blocking imports of foreign-made auto parts, and largely found in favor of Washington in a dispute over Chinese product piracy and counterfeiting. A U.S. and Mexican complaint over Chinese government subsidies in manufacturing was settled out of court.

June 16, 2009  Boeing and Airbus.  Boeing states that was disappointed with a move by European rival Airbus to obtain state financing for its new A350 XWB aircraft and called it illegal under World Trade Organization (WTO) rules. "We are disappointed by reports that the Airbus member states intend to provide - and Airbus to accept - billions of dollars of launch aid for the A350," the U.S. planemaker said. "Such financing would violate the member states' international obligations to abide by the rules of the WTO. It is long overdue for Airbus to fund its airplane development on commercial terms including using its own resources, which it has indicated are ample."

June 15, 2009  WTO.  The World Trade Organization's head, Pascal Lamy, Friday said he saw no improvement in global trade and confirmed his forecast of a 9% drop in international trade in 2009 in terms of volume, compared with 2008.  "I don't see any positive signs yet. If one looks at the foreign trade figures from China or the U.S., nothing stands against the fact that we're in the middle of the crisis," Lamy said, speaking at a press breakfast in Paris.

June 15, 2009  WTO and Russia.  Russia will seek to access the World Trade Organization as a customs union with Belarus and Kazakhstan only once the bloc is in place from 2011.  "Russia will join as part of a customs union. All the procedures for the customs union will be completed by the middle of 2011," Russian Finance Minister Kudrin said on the sidelines of a meeting of G8 finance ministers in Lecce in southern Italy. Kudrin said he could not foresee how long negotiations with the WTO would take but added that "90 percent" of agreements already in place as part of Russia's bid since 1993 to join the global trade body would remain. Russia is the biggest world economy still outside the WTO. Initial talks on its accession began 1993 but have dragged on amid a variety of disputes, and in recent months Russian officials have expressed frustration with the process.

June 12, 2009  Belize.  A week-long National Self Assessment of Needs and Priorities for Belize is taking place this week in Belize.  The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade in conjunction with the World Trade Organization are conducting the exercise with the objective of assisting World Trade Organization members and observers in conducting a self-assessment which will help Belize to participate more effectively in future WTO Trade Facilitation negotiations.  It will also identify special and differential treatment, technical assistance and capacity building needs and priorities. Ceremonies were held June 8 - this exercise will provide a current assessment of the country’s trade facilities situation, will also advance the skills already practiced and will encourage the smooth the movement of goods and people at the border points.

June 12, 2009  EU, U.S. and China. The European Union and the United States will take action against China at the World Trade Organization this month over export restrictions on around 20 industrial raw materials, EU and industry sources said. The sources state  that Brussels and Washington will formally request consultations with Beijing on the issue June 22. If these talks fail, the next step will be to request a WTO panel to hear the complaint. The EU and United States claim China has continued to restrict exports of raw materials used in steel, semiconductors, aircraft and other products despite Beijing's pledge to eliminate taxes and charges on exports when it joined the WTO in 2001. Some of the materials expected to be covered by the case include yellow phosphorous, antimony, bauxite, coke, fluorspar, indium, magnesium carbonate, molybdenum, rare earths, silicon, talc, tin, tungsten and zinc.

June 11, 2009  U.S. and EU.  The European Commission Wednesday said that U.S. laws prohibiting gambling over the Internet violate international trade rules and threatened to challenge the ban at the World Trade Organization. An investigation by the commission, the European Union's executive arm, has found that the U.S. gambling ban is being enforced mainly against non-U.S. companies, a violation of WTO rules. The commission said that while a WTO case against the U.S. would be justified, it hopes that the two countries can negotiate a solution. The E.U. says that the U.S. continues to allow remote betting on horse and greyhound races through U.S. companies, while cracking down on Internet poker gambling companies in the E.U., which are mainly based in the U.K., Ireland, Austria, Malta and Gibraltar.

June 10, 2009  Doha Round.  World Trade Organization chief Pascal Lamy has stated that the Doha Round should conclude by next year.  Lamy's statement comes as the United States said it is committed to outlining a new basis for negotiations over the stalled Doha Round of World Trade Organization (WTO) talks by August. U.S. Trade Rep Ron Kirk was speaking at the end of a three-day meeting of the 19-member Cairns Group, which accounts for 25 percent of the world's agricultural trade, on the Indonesian resort island of Bali. Although the United States is not a member of the group, he said he fully endorsed its joint communique calling for world leaders show the "political will" to re-start the Doha Round negotiations after their collapse last year.

June 10, 2009  WTO membership.  Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan will launch joint negotiations for World Trade Organization (WTO) membership, abandoning separate accession talks. Russia, the largest country outside the 153-member trade body, had been pushing for membership for well over a decade and the European Union's trade chief said last week the negotiations could finally be completed by the end of this year. Kazakhstan started WTO talks in 1996 but has continuously put off the accession deadline.  Negotiations will now be started afresh, on the basis of a new customs zone between the three former Soviet states, their leaders said in a joint statement read out by Putin.  The leaders agreed 'to inform WTO about the intention to start WTO accession talks for the customs union of Kazakhstan, Belarus and Russia as a single customs zone'.  The joint customs zone will be created from Jan. 1, 2010, the statement said.

June 9, 2009   Canadian ports.  Canadian ports such as Vancouver get government subsides that violate rules of the World Trade Organization, letting them undercut prices and decrease cargo volume at U.S. facilities, a California port official claims. Competition from Canada is partly to blame for a drop in freight of about 40% at the Port of Long Beach. Long Beach, the second-largest port in the U.S., had fewer than 200,000 cargo containers imported through its terminals in April, down from a peak of 348,000 in August 2006. Import volumes for the first four months of this year are off 23% from the same period a year ago. While most of the drop is a result of the global recession, the Canadian investments have diverted some cargo away from U.S. ports. Canadian investments in rail and port infrastructure may violate rules in the WTO that limit subsidies - US$283-million in rail infrastructure investments and US$170-million to build a new terminal at Prince Rupert.

June 8, 2009   U.S. and Russia.  Russia should remove its ban on US pork imports "as quickly as possible" as it seeks to become a member of the World Trade Organization, a top US trade official has stated. "We continue to hold out hope that Russia will move as quickly as possible to remove this ban," US Trade Representative Ron Kirk told reporters after talks with senior Russian officials. Speaking at a briefing, Kirk said the US officials had relayed their "deep concern" over Russia's ban on imports of pork from the United States and other countries over fears of a swine flue. Despite lifting a ban on some US states, Russia is still banning pork from eight US states - California, Delaware, New York, Illinois, South Carolina, Texas, Arizona and Massachusetts. The ban's removal would be a "wonderful manifestation" that Moscow was serious about its intentions to join the World Trade Organization (WTO). Russia, the only major economy outside the global trade body, began negotiations to join the WTO in 1993. Russian officials have repeatedly said Russia will only enter the trade group on its own conditions. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) expressed concern earlier this month that Russia's desire to join the WTO had slackened.

June 5, 2009   EU and Russia.  The European Commission and Russia have agreed the country should become a member of the World Trade Organization by the end of the year. "We have agreed that WTO accession should be completed before the end of this year," E.U. Trade Commissioner Catherine Ashton said in a statement, after meeting with Russian Minister for Economic Development, Elvira Nabiullina, in St. Petersburg.

June 5, 2009   Ecuador.  World Trade Organization (WTO) members have agreed to allow Ecuador to impose temporary import restrictions because of balance of payments problems. The move was hailed by rich and developing countries as proof that the rules-based trading system umpired by the WTO was working well despite the economic crisis, and that WTO members could tackle the needs of developing countries in difficulties. The members reached agreement after lengthy consultations in which Ecuador agreed to modify the restrictions and phase them out early if its economy improved, according to a draft report by the WTO's committee on balance of payments restrictions. WTO rules allow temporary waivers to trade agreements to countries with balance of payments problems, enabling them to raise tariffs or impose quotas. This was the first time in 10 years that a WTO member had sought such an exemption, although Bangladesh received one in 2007 in a follow-up to a previous request.

June 4, 2009  Cuba.  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton left the Organization of American States general assembly yesterday without persuading the group to endorse a U.S. plan to welcome back Cuba as a member only after it meets democratic standards. The closed-door afternoon session with foreign ministers extended into the evening.  The debate over Cuba’s status in the OAS reflects a festering divide between the U.S. and most of its Latin American and Caribbean neighbors over half a century of American isolation of the communist island 90 miles south of Florida. With negotiations continuing and although a text that satisfied the majority seemed within reach, talks broke down. Assistant secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Thomas Shannon said the U.S. had “worked with all the countries” and “thought we had a constructive document.”  But not everyone could agree on a memorandum that would have lifted Cuba’s suspension if it adhered to the OAS’s principles of democracy and human rights, Shannon stated.

June 3, 2009  Russia.  The International Monetary Fund expressed concern on Monday that Russia's desire to join the World Trade Organization had slackened after a series of delays. Russia is the largest world economy still outside the WTO. Initial membership negotiations began in 1993 but were delayed by disputes over a variety of issues and were set back by Russia's war with Georgia last year. Meanwhile, the IMF said that it was downgrading its forecast for the Russian economy in 2009 to a contraction in GDP of 6.5% compared with its previous forecast of 6%.  For 2010, it expects zero growth in the country, the fund said in the statement issued after the completion of its latest mission to Russia.

June 2, 2009  U.S. dairy products.  U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has begun implementing provisions of the Dairy Export Incentive Program, partly in response to the reintroduction of direct export subsidies by the European Union earlier this year. Vilsack announced the allocations under the program for the July 2008 through June 30, 2009 period. The allocations, which are allowed under World Trade Organization rules, are designed to help U.S. dairy exporters meet prevailing world prices in areas where U.S. dairy products are not competitive due to subsidized dairy products from other countries. The Dairy Export Incentive Program allocations of 68,201 metric tons of nonfat dry milk; 21,097 metric tons of butterfat; 3,030 metric tons of various cheeses and 34 metric tons of other dairy products, as well as individual product and country allocations will be made available through Invitations for Offers. Country and region quantities may be limited by the invitation. Administered by USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service, the program was reauthorized by the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008. As part of its World Trade Organization commitments resulting from the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture, the United States has established annual export subsidy ceilings by commodity with respect to maximum permitted quantities and maximum budgetary expenditures.

June 1, 2009  EU, U.S. and Russia.  The European Union, the United States and Russia will hold detailed ministerial talks this week on Moscow’s bid to join the World Trade Organization (WT0). EU Trade Commissioner Catherine Ashton, United States Trade Representative Ron Kirk and Russian Economy Minister Elvira Nabiullina will meet in the margins of the St Petersburg Economic Forum, which starts on June 4, according to Reuters news agency. Russia, which has been trying for more than a decade to join the 153-member WTO, is the largest economy to remain outside the organization. All WTO members must approve Russia’s membership bid for the country to join. Russia has been negotiating entry into the WTO for more than 15 years. Following another round of talks in Geneva May 25-29, WTO officials said they would like to see Russia join the organization as soon as possible, but acknowledged that problems still exist.

Russia’s accession stalled after Washington put the issue on ice over Russia’s military incursion into Georgia in 2008. Now, the US administration of Barack Obama has grown warmer to Russia’s bid, allowing it to move ahead with accession plans. However, Russia’s ban of all imports of EU pork, citing concerns over the spread of Mexican swine flu, is hampering Russia’s WTO bid. Moves by Moscow to place duties on imports of timber and cars from the EU, and threats of further tariffs on other goods ranging from shoes to furniture have also hurt its WTO aspirations. Russian levies also remain in place on EU aircraft crossing Siberia, despite being dropped after an agreement was signed with the EU in 2007.

May 29, 2009  EU and Yemen.  The European Commission has concluded trade negotiations with Yemen, giving a boost to the country's bid to join the World Trade Organization. Yemen first applied to the WTO in 2000 and made its first offer to open its borders to imports and foreign services firms in 2005. Trade in goods between the E.U. and Yemen totaled EUR1.3 billion in 2007.

May 28, 2009  WTO sets ministerial meeting.  The World Trade Organization has scheduled its first ministerial meeting in four years for November - though global trade talks won’t be on the agenda.  Under the Geneva-based WTO’s rules, ministerial conferences must be held at least once every two years. Negotiators had held off scheduling a ministerial meeting in anticipation of being able to use the future gathering to wrap up a global trade deal that would cap tariffs and farm subsidies. The Doha Round of talks began in 2001 with a plan to cut agricultural subsidies in rich nations and tariffs on industrial and farm goods worldwide. Since then, the talks have stumbled, with a series of meetings of trade ministers from the U.S., the European Union, China, India and other nations ending in failure.

Talks to craft a deal before changes in the U.S. administration and the EU and Indian governments fell apart last July. The main sticking point, highlighted in a divide between the U.S. and India, was the trigger for a mechanism to allow developing countries to raise agricultural tariffs to protect their farmers from a surge in imports. The theme of the seventh ministerial conference, which will run from Nov. 30 to Dec. 2 in Geneva, will be “The WTO, the Multilateral Trading System and the Current Global Economic Environment.” A ministerial conference can make decisions on all matters under any multilateral trade agreement. The last ministerial meeting was held in Hong Kong in December 2005.

May 28, 2009  U.S. dairy.  Twenty-nine countries at the World Trade Organization criticized the United States on Wednesday for reintroducing export subsidies on U.S. dairy products, calling the handouts a dangerous retreat into protectionism and warning of "subsidy wars." Brazil, speaking on behalf of 23 developing countries, told a WTO meeting that Washington was promoting a "murky protectionism" that weakens the global trading system at a time when global commerce is already shrinking at a record pace. Australia, on behalf of agricultural exporting nations, said the subsidy announcement  for 102,000 U.S. tons (91,000 metric tons) of mainly milk powder, butter and cheese was unfair to countries trading fairly, and potentially damaging to global economy's recovery. The subsidy decision under the U.S. Dairy Export Incentive Program follows a similar move by the European Union in January.

May 27, 2009  WTO.  A group of exporting countries drummed up support on Tuesday to reach a deal soon in the World Trade Organization's long-running Doha round as the best way to tackle protectionism in the economic crisis. At a meeting of the WTO's General Council, several more countries signed up to or backed a document originally circulated on May 20 by 13 states, which sponsors hope will eventually be backed by all or nearly all the WTO's 153 members.  The document appeared as negotiators talk of a growing improvement in the political conditions for a new trade deal, even if the economic crisis looks set to sharpen protectionist tensions as output falls and unemployment rises. The improved political mood, as technical work continues quietly on areas from agriculture and industrial goods to fisheries and trade and environment, is also leading members to seek ways out of the repeated impasses in negotiations that have seen ministerial meetings collapse three years in succession. The document was originally signed by Colombia, Costa Rica, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Peru, Singapore, Switzerland, Turkey and Uruguay. On Tuesday it drew support from Tanzania, on behalf of the least developed countries, Ukraine, Thailand, Israel and Taiwan among others, as well as members of the G20 rich and emerging countries such as the United States, Australia, Canada and South Korea, whose April summit pledges it reinforces. 

May 26, 2009  Russia and EU.  The European Union's trade commissioner on Friday ruled out finalizing a strategic pact with Russia before it joins the World Trade Organization and warned Moscow against introducing new protectionist measures. The wide-ranging strategic deal, intended to replace a 1994 pact puts trade as a cornerstone of relations that may cover all areas of relations between Brussels and Moscow, but is still under negotiation. Russia's long-delayed accession to the WTO and stalled talks on the broad-range Russia-EU pact were issues at the summit which focused on efforts to overcome the global economic crisis. The European Union has voiced concerns about Russian protectionist measures including a hike in export tariffs on timber and restrictions on foreign gas imports which were adopted to support domestic industries in the crisis.

May 26, 2009  Ecuador.  Ecuador will not sign a free trade deal with the European Union, President Rafael Correa said, criticizing the tenor of talks between the two. "The European Union can give (the deal) whatever pretty name it wants, but we are headed toward a free trade agreement, and we will not accept that," Correa said on Saturday. Speaking during a weekly television and radio address, the leftist leader accused the EU of trying to reach a deal that mimics rules of the World Trade Organization, which is steering global trade liberalization negotiations. Andean countries - with the exception of Bolivia - are currently negotiating an Association Agreement with the Brussels-centered bloc.

May 26, 2009  U.S. and EU.  A long-running trade clash between the United States and the European Union over hormone-treated beef is almost resolved and could pave the way for an end to other disputes between the world's two biggest economic powers, the top U.S. trade official said May 11. The EU in early May agreed to buy more high-value American beef to avoid having classic European products like Italian mineral water and French Roquefort cheese slapped with punitive sanctions by the U.S., which says the World Trade Organization has repeatedly ruled in its favor in the 13-year dispute.  Brussels bars the import of beef from cattle treated with growth hormones, saying it is a health hazard, but Washington says the World Trade Organization has repeatedly ruled there is insufficient evidence for the claim. "Assuming we get the beef issue finally put to bed, which we're 99 percent there, then we'll look and see if there are other issues that we might be able to address as well," U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk told reporters on his first visit to the WTO in Geneva. Kirk said he met his EU counterpart, Trade Commissioner Catherine Ashton, shortly after his Senate confirmation "and in both of our minds it was somewhat of a tragedy that we spend so much of our time in dispute matters at the WTO."  Washington and Brussels are also locked in a high-profile dispute over alleged trade-distorting subsidies to rival plane makers Boeing Co. and Airbus SA.

May 25, 2009  U.S. observes Memorial Day.

May 22, 2009  U.S. paper companies.  Canada, Brazil, Chile and the European Union protested an unintended tax break for U.S. paper companies Thursday, warning Congress that it could result in trade sanctions. Struggling U.S. paper companies recently discovered they could qualify for federal tax credits intended to promote the development of alternative fuels because they use a byproduct in the paper-making process as fuel to power their mills. The tax credits were never intended for paper companies, but now they could be worth more than $3 billion a year, according to a congressional estimate. Ambassadors from the three countries and the head of the E.U. delegation to the U.S. want Congress to end the tax break, even before it is scheduled to expire at the end of the year. They argue that the tax break provides incentives for U.S. companies to overproduce pulp, depressing prices.

Congress expanded the tax credit for developing alternative fuels in 2007, offering firms 50 cents a gallon to blend renewable fuels with traditional fossil fuels like diesel. Paper mills produce a liquid substance called "black liquor" as a byproduct of the process that turns wood into pulp. The pulp is dried to make paper and black liquor is then used as fuel to power the mill. Last year some paper companies realized they could qualify for the credit by adding small amounts of diesel to the black liquor used for powering their mills.

May 21, 2009  U.S. appeals.  The United States yesterday launched an appeal in a dispute with Japan at the World Trade Organization over its treatment of unfairly-priced imports. The appeal marks another attempt by the United States to defend zeroing, its controversial method of dealing with imports it says are dumped - sold for less than they cost at home. The United States is the only one of the WTO's 153 members still to support the method, which has been repeatedly condemned by the WTO's highest court. Only last Thursday the court, the Appellate Body, told the United States it must comply with previous rulings in another case involving zeroing that Washington was contesting with the European Union. The WTO's Dispute Settlement Body had been due to discuss an April 24 report that found the United States failed to comply with an earlier ruling in the case, originally involving imports of Japanese bearings, which the United States had argued were dumped. But the chairman of the body, Canada's WTO ambassador John Gero, told the meeting the item was being removed from the agenda because the United States was appealing. April's finding by a WTO compliance panel had cleared the way for Japan to seek up to $250 million a year in retaliation against U.S. imports.

May 21, 2009  Colombia.  The World Trade Organization (WTO) has established that Colombia violated international trade laws by restricting the import of Panamanian products. The WTO declared that Panamanian exporters were economically affected and that Colombian requests harmed the merchandise trade of both countries. The Colombian government was asked to act immediately according to the world trade regulations and to execute the complete reestablishment of the trading businesses.   The restricted merchandise, was mainly cloth related products - the WTO also considered illegal Colombian methods of defining custom valuation as well as the request of presenting an import declaration and the duty payment previous to the transport of products.

May 21, 2009  Australia.  Australia is seeking urgent talks with the European Union over a new tariff quota on beef imports to ensure it will not hit Australian producers, senior ministers stated yesterday. The quota stems from a possible settlement between the United States and the EU in a long-running dispute over hormone-fed beef, which has raised cancer fears among European consumers. The United States and EU have agreed to temporarily put aside a 20-year fight over growth hormones used in American cattle feed rations that has kept most U.S. beef out of the European market since the late 1980s.

The U.S. won a World Trade Organization ruling against the EU's ban and would have been allowed to impose retaliatory import tariffs on a range of European goods including French cheeses. A provisional deal will allow an additional 20,000 ton of U.S. beef to enter the European Union duty-free for three years, followed by 45,000 tons for the fourth year of the deal.  Australia exports beef worth A$136 million ($105.8 million) to the European Union each year. While the EU market is not a big volume market for Australian beef, it is a high value one. Most exports fall under the EU's High Quality Beef tariff quota, which allows beef to enter Europe on a yearly basis from seven countries including Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Paraguay, Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina. The EU's current duty-free quota stands at 11,500 tons, lifting to 31,500 tons during the next three years.   

May 20, 2009   WTO.  A WTO panel has ended its first hearing on tariffs on certain information technology (IT) products, a dispute which pitted the EC against countries like the US, Japan, China and the Philippines.  The complainants raised the issue to the multilateral trade group in May last year, charging that the duties EC members imposed on flat panel displays, set top boxes and multifunctional fax machines violated the Information Technology Agreement, a deal which eliminated tariffs on IT goods.  A WTO panel, composed of officials from Switzerland, Canada and New Zealand, heard the parties’ arguments last week and are slated to re-convene again in July to hear rebuttals. If the case is decided in favor of the US and the other complainants, EC members will have to "bring its policy into line with the ruling or recommendations" or else lower tariffs in other areas as compensation. Already, electronics export sales fell 42.6% to $4.316 billion in the first quarter from year-ago levels as the economic downturn dampened foreign buyers’ demand, official data show. 

May 19, 2009  U.S.  The Obama administration wants to explore new trade vistas in the Asia-Pacific region once it has dealt with challenges it inherited, including a deal with Panama and a global trade pact, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk stated yesterday.  Kirk expressed a desire to get beyond Doha and other pending agreements and onto other projects, especially in Asia. "If you look at where the economy is going, I think you have to be led to the extraordinary potential there is for us to grow - in a bilateral or multilateral environment - market access in the Asia-Pacific (region)," Kirk stated. He said U.S. officials want to develop "a more thoughtful relationship" with China concerning trade. Hopefully there could be a meeting of the U.S.-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade before Obama meets Chinese President Hu Jintao later this year.

May 19, 2009  Euro zone.  Euro zone export volumes rose for the second month running in March and analysts said Monday's official data could signal the collapse in trade is bottoming out. The 16 countries using the euro recorded a 400 million euros ($541.7 million) surplus, against deficits of 1 billion euros in February and 2.3 billion in March 2008, unadjusted data from the European Union's statistics office showed. Adjusted for seasonal swings, the euro zone still had a 2.1 billion euro trade deficit in March, but that gap was smaller than February's 2.9 billion and January's 6.6 billion shortfall. Seasonally adjusted exports rose to 105 billion in March from 103.5 billion in February and 101.9 billion in January, while imports rebounded to 107 billion in March after easing to 106.4 billion in February from 108.5 billion in January.

May 18, 2009  The Ukraine.  The key advantages of Ukraine's WTO membership - simplifying the exporting method and streamlining their access to markets has led to great success - last year exports grew by 40.7% or USD 12.5 billion compared to USD 43.2 billion in 2007.  Major goods exported include steel products and carbamide. Ukraine joined the World Trade Organization on May 16, 2008.

May 15, 2009  WTO and U.S.  A World Trade Organization appeals panel has agreed with an earlier finding that the U.S. failed to stop using a method of calculating antidumping duties called "zeroing." The United States and European Union had appealed against a verdict, also mixed, by a WTO compliance panel in December last year. The ruling was a further setback for the controversial U.S. method, known as zeroing, of levying anti-dumping duties on imports that are sold for less than they cost at home. December's panel had found the United States had failed to comply with an original dispute ruling in 2005 and a subsequent appeal in 2006 involving duties on imports of steel products, adopted by the WTO's dispute settlement body (DSB).

The appeal court has consistently ruled against zeroing, which is opposed by all the WTO's 153 members except the United States.  Yesterday's ruling upheld the original compliance panel finding that the United States had wrongly continued to base its assessment of anti-dumping duties on imports of steel products from the Netherlands and Sweden on zeroing after the reasonable period of time it was given to comply with the rulings.  It also supported EU claims about assessments of duties made during the reasonable period of time, and said the United States was in breach of the rules in those cases. The court has backed the previous panel's rejection of some other EU claims. International trade rules allow countries to levy compensatory duties on imports that are dumped - sold for less than they cost in the exporter - if they hurt business in the importing country. Calculating these duties usually involves comparing batches of goods. In zeroing the United States ignores - treats as zero - examples where the imports actually cost more than at home. Other countries say this artificially inflates the duties, but Washington argues the method is fair, and is pushing hard to get zeroing recognized in the new Doha trade deal that has been under negotiation for more than seven years.

May 14, 2009  EU.  The European Union on Wednesday fined Intel, the world’s largest computer chip manufacturer, over its anti-competitive practices aimed to snuff out its competitor AMD. In a ruling that is likely to cause tremors in the computer chip market, the EU slapped a huge fine of $1.45 billion on Intel for following “illegal anti-competitive practices” to prevent its competitors like AMD from having a foothold in the EU. The illegal practices involved making payments to a major retailer to stock only computers with Intel chips. The verdict coincides with one of the biggest trade disputes EU is fighting with the United States at the World Trade Organization (WTO) over duty-free access for American ITA products. The US, along with Taiwan, had launched a major dispute against the EU complaining that it was not adhering to commitments it undertook as part of the ITA agreement. The EU’s ruling against Intel has put paid to claims of competitive practices adopted by American companies with Intel becoming the second major violator of the EU anti-trust rules after Microsoft, analysts said. “Intel has harmed millions of European consumers by deliberately acting to keep competitors out of the market for computer chips for many years,” said the European Union Competition Commissioner, arguing that such a serious and sustained violation of the antitrust rules could not be tolerated.

May 13, 2009  EU and U.S.  A provisional agreement between the United States and the European Union to resolve the long-standing trade dispute has been announced. Under the agreement, which is expected to be finalized soon, the EU will provide additional duty-free access to its market for high-quality beef produced from cattle that have not been treated with growth-promoting hormones 20,000 tons in the first three years and increasing to 45,000 tons beginning in the fourth year. The United States may maintain existing sanctions and will not impose new sanctions on EU products during the initial three-year period, and may eliminate all sanctions during the fourth year. The two sides will refrain from further litigation at the World Trade Organization (WTO) regarding the EU's ban on beef treated with certain growth-promoting hormones for at least 18 months. Before the end of the four-year period, the two sides will seek to conclude a longer-term agreement.

In light of the May 6 provisional agreement with the European Union, the United States is delaying the imposition of additional duties on a modified list of EU products and member States in connection with World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement rulings in the EU Beef Hormones dispute. The additional duties were to go into effect on May 9, 2009. The delay will prevent the additional duties from taking effect until August 15, 2009. Once the provisional agreement with the EU is signed, USTR intends to take further steps to prevent the application of any additional duties for the duration of the agreement.

May 12, 2009  China.  With no fanfare, a $5 billion refinery in which Saudi Aramco has a 25 percent stake quietly began processing oil a couple of weeks ago in eastern China.  The start-up of the Fujian plant, half-owned by Sinopec, the largest state-owned refiner in China, testifies to the thickening trade and investment ties between China and the Arab world.  Chinese exports to the 22 members of the Arab League jumped to $62.3 billion last year from just $7.2 billion in 2001, the year China joined the World Trade Organization. The share in total Chinese exports rose to 4.4 percent from 2.7 percent. Imports from the Arab world over the same period grew to $70.3 billion from $7.5 billion, doubling the share in total imports to 6.2 percent, according to official Chinese data.  With markets and the media riveted by China’s hunt for natural resources in Australia, Africa and Latin America, the Middle East story has perhaps been underplayed.

May 11, 2009  WTO and food.  International trade is part of the solution to the global food crisis and not one of its causes, the head of the World Trade Organization said on Sunday. Global integration represented by trade enabled food to be transported from where it could be produced efficiently to where there was demand, said WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy. Geography meant many countries - Egypt, for example - could never be self-sufficient in food, he said in a speech prepared for an International Food and Agricultural Trade Policy Council conference in Salzburg, Austria. "International trade was not the source of last year's food crisis," Lamy stated. "If anything, international trade has reduced the price of food over the years through greater competition, and enhanced consumer purchasing power." Sharp rises in food prices in 2007 and 2008 led to riots in many countries over food shortages. Prices have since come off their peaks but many experts argued agricultural trade exacerbated the problem and was not in the interest of poor farmers or consumers in poor countries.

May 8, 2009  Canada and U.S.  Canada took action against the United States at the World Trade Organization yesterday over a U.S. meat labeling law that Canadian producers say has hurt their hog and cattle sales. Ottawa requested a further round of consultations, a formal step that will enable it to request a WTO dispute settlement panel after 60 days if talks with the United States do not resolve its concerns. The issue is over a new rule that forces U.S. meat packers to include the country of origin on their product labels. Canada had requested WTO consultations last year but then suspended its action after Washington revised the final version to make it more flexible. But before the law went into effect on March 16, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack warned meat packers he would rewrite it unless they voluntarily made labels more explicit. Ironically, as it was announcing its trade action against Washington, Ottawa was issuing a joint statement with the United States and Mexico expressing concern over import bans by other nations on pigs and pork products because of H1N1 flu concerns, also called swine flu. The three NAFTA countries threatened to take all appropriate measures to fight what they consider unjustified restrictions on pork and swine trade.

May 8, 2009  WTO.  The World Trade Organization states that there has been a 17 per cent rise in its anti-dumping investigations in the second half of last year, compared with the same period in 2007. A product exported at a cheaper rate than it is sold at home is said to be 'dumped.' According to WTO rules, countries are allowed to slap restrictions on dumped goods if it is proved to cause damage to their domestic producers. In the whole of 2008, there were 208 initiations, including 120 in the second half, compared with 163 in all of 2007.  

May 7, 2009  Canada and EU.  Prague will host the summit of the EU with its key business partner Canada this week.  The EU-Canada summit will officially launch bilateral talks on free trade which would enable the lowering of duty fees, the release of investments and cooperation between the EU and Canada on the regulation and the rules to determine the origin of commodities. Both partners should gain 20 billion euros a year from the agreement that is to be completed by 2011. Canada with the annual trade turnover of over 70 billion euros is one of the EU's key business partners.

May 7, 2009  U.S. and EU.  Government trade officials in the U.S. and Europe yesterday announced that the European Union will increase the imports it allows for non-hormone-treated beef. The agreement came as a new chapter in the long-running dispute over Europe's refusal to import beef from the U.S. that has been produced using growth-promoting hormones. U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk and EU Trade Commissioner Catherine Ashton explained the provisions in a joint statement issued May 6. The agreement, in principle, would provide additional duty-free access to the EU market for high-quality beef produced from cattle that have not been treated with growth-promoting hormones, including an additional 20,000 tons in the first three years and increasing to 45,000 tons beginning in the fourth year.

The U.S. won a World Trade Organization case against the EU's ban on U.S. beef and this year would have been allowed to issue import tariffs on a new list of European goods. Under the May 6 agreement, the U.S. will maintain existing sanctions and will not impose new sanctions on EU products during the initial three-year period and will eliminate all sanctions during the fourth year, according to the statement from the trade officials. The two sides will refrain from further litigation at WTO regarding the EU's ban on beef treated with certain growth-promoting hormones for at least 18 months. Before the end of the four-year period, the two sides will seek to conclude a longer-term agreement.

May 7, 2009  Azerbaijan.  The Azerbaijani Government has launched bilateral talks with eight countries of the World Trade Organization (WTO) on country's entrance to the organization. The talks are being held in Geneva and will last to May 8. Azerbaijan is negotiating with the United States, Japan, Brazil, Ecuador, Sri Lanka, European Union, Norway, India, South Korea, and Taiwan Province of China. This year Switzerland will also included into the list. Gradually the list of these countries is increasing. Switzerland offers a significant reduction of customs tariffs on agricultural and industrial products, proposed by the Azerbaijani side, almost two to three times. WTO participating states demand further liberalization of customs tariffs despite they do not exceed 15 percent in Azerbaijan.

May 6, 2009  Canadian seals.  The European Parliament (EP) has voted to ban imports of seal products, including fur coats and even omega-3 pills, trying to force Canada to end the annual seal hunt that animal rights groups call barbaric.  The EU assembly overwhelmingly endorsed a bill that said commercial seal hunting, notably in Canada, is "inherently inhumane". The bill still needs the backing of EU governments, but officials called that a formality, since national envoys had already endorsed the bill. Canada's East Coast seal hunt is the largest of its kind in the world, killing an average of 300 000 harp seals annually. Canada exported around US$5.5m worth of seal products such as pelts, meat, and oils to the EU in 2006.

The Canadian federal government will take the European Union to the World Trade Organization to challenge a pending ban on seal products unless the EU exempts Canada because it practices a humane and sustainable hunt. Canada's Trade Minister Day states that the ban is based on emotion rather than hard facts because opponents portray the seal hunt as it was 40 years ago. He said that it has changed and that clear regulations are now in place, including a ban on hunting or harvesting baby seals. The federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) reiterated the government's stance on the ban, which would see the loss of an annual $2.4-million market for Canada.

May 5, 2009  More U.S. blacklist.  China, Russia and Canada were among 12 countries targeted last week for failing to sufficiently protect American producers of music, movies and other copyrighted material from widespread piracy. The US placed the 12 nations on a "priority watch list" that will subject them to extra scrutiny and could eventually lead to economic sanctions if the administration decides to bring trade cases before the World Trade Organization. It marked the first time that Canada has been placed on the list. Also added to the priority list this year were Algeria and Indonesia. The administration said Canada was elevated to the priority list because of increasing concerns about the need for it to implement copyright reforms and better police its borders to seize pirated goods.  US Trade Representative Ron Kirk said the findings in the report, which has been done annually for 20 years, would guide the administration's efforts to protect American producers of copyrighted products.

China and Russia have been on the priority watch list for several years while the other nations placed on the priority watch list in this year's report were: Argentina, Chile, India, Israel, Pakistan, Thailand and Venezuela. Another 33 trading partners were placed on a lower level watch list, indicating the administration is concerned about copyright issues in those nations but does not view them as the largest threats to US businesses. The 33 trading partners placed on this year's watch list were: Belarus, Bolivia, Brazil, Brunei, Colombia, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Finland, Greece, Guatemala, Hungary, Italy, Jamaica, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, Mexico, Norway, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.

May 4, 2009  Canada added to blacklist.  The Obama administration has added Canada to a notorious blacklist of countries where Internet piracy flourishes. Canada now joins a group of countries designated as being especially lax in protecting intellectual property, including Algeria, China, Russia, Pakistan, Indonesia and Venezuela. No other advanced Western democracy is on the list and Canada is regarded as a lawless hub for bootleg movies, ripped-off software and pirated chips that bypass copyright protections.

For years, the powerful International Intellectual Property Alliance – a group that includes companies such as Microsoft Corp., Apple Inc. and Paramount Pictures Corp. – pressed the previous Bush administration to get tough with what it regarded as Canada's chronic failure to enforce intellectual property laws. But the Bush administration was content to leave Canada among the larger and less-serious group of offenders on the ordinary watch list. The alliance cheered Canada's blacklisting Thursday. “We commend [the U.S. Trade Representative] for the decision to elevate Canada to the priority watch list,” it said. “Canada remains woefully behind the rest of the developed world (and many countries in the developing world as well) in adopting critical legislation that will facilitate the development of a healthy online marketplace for copyright materials,” said Eric Smith, an alliance spokesman.

May 4, 2009  Banned pork imports.  New trade bans are rattling the $2.7-billion-a-year Canadian pork export business after an H1N1 influenza outbreak on a central Alberta farm, but none of the countries closing their borders so far are major customers. Philippines, El Salvador, Honduras, Ukraine and other countries have stopped accepting all Canadian pork. After some confusion Sunday, industry officials confirmed that China has banned imports only from Alberta, a relatively minor player in Canada’s hog sector.
The bans came quickly after authorities revealed Saturday that a central Alberta pig farm is quarantined under suspicion that a farm worker returning from Mexico spread the “swine flu” to hogs. Alberta and Canadian government and pork-industry officials have warned other countries there is no need to ban pork products, since cooked meat doesn’t transmit the virus.

Russia as well is facing widespread criticism for import bans on pork in response to the A/H1N1 influenza virus, also known as the swine flu. The World Health Organization, U.N. and  World Trade Organization stated Saturday that there was absolutely no risk of infection from consumption of well-cooked pork and pork products - there is no evidence the virus is spread by food. As of Sunday, Russia had joined the ban by halting pork imports from 11 U.S. states, three Canadian provinces, Spain and nine Latin American countries - additionally, all meat imports are banned from Mexico, California, New York, South Carolina and Texas. The U.S. and Canada each report that pork exports have dropped about 10 percent since the swine flu scare started.

May 1, 2009  WTO.  The World Trade Organization’s 153 members unanimously agreed to reappoint Pascal Lamy as director- general for a second term, giving the Frenchman four more years to steer the trade arbiter toward a global trade agreement.  Lamy, 62, was first named to the position on Sept. 1, 2005. He told WTO ambassadors yesterday that he wanted another term to see the Doha Round of global trade talks to a successful conclusion. European Union Trade Commissioner Catherine Ashton said the global recession makes continuity at the top of the Geneva-based WTO important. Lamy was EU trade chief in 1999-2004.

April 30, 2009  WTO.  The World Trade Organization's 153 members were set Thursday to approve another four-year term for Director-General Pascal Lamy, who is running unopposed for the top job. Lamy, a 62-year-old member of the French Socialist Party, has headed the WTO since 2005. His second term will start Sept. 1.  At a question-and-answer session with Lamy and the full membership on Wednesday, no delegate expressed an objection to Lamy's reappointment. Countries in effect gave Lamy their approval in December when they proposed no other candidate by a year-end deadline. Lamy's leadership of the body setting the rules for global commerce has been dogged by members' failure to conclude a new global trade pact. The talks were launched in Doha, Qatar, more than seven years ago with the goal of wrapping up a deal by December 2004. With no end in sight, the trade round will soon become the longest ever by surpassing in length the 1994 Uruguay Round, which created the WTO out of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.

April 30, 2009  India and Russia.  India and Russia, two of the four most important emerging economies in the world, will not be able to enter into a free trade agreement for expanding their trade ties unless Moscow becomes a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO). "The agreement is on the table... But we can sign it only after Russia gets WTO membership," a Commerce Ministry official stated. A feasibility study on the proposed Free Trade Agreement (FTA), officially known as the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA), has long been finalized but cannot be acted upon in the absence of Russia joining the WTO.  Russia's territorial dispute with Georgia is cited as one of the reasons for the delay in its (Russia's) joining the Geneva-based multilateral trade body.  "The process has been delayed as Georgia (has) a territorial dispute with Russia," the official said. Bilateral FTAs or Regional Trade Agreements are signed to give market access to partners, but they come under the overall discipline of the WTO. 

April 29, 2009  Canada - U.S.  The International Trade Minister has stated that Canada has given notice to the Obama administration it is filing a World Trade Organization complaint over country-of-origin labeling on Canadian meat products exported to the United States.
Following a meeting with the U.S. Trade Representative, Canada said Ottawa is "moving forward" with a WTO consultation, objecting to provisions it considers damaging to Canada's agriculture industry. The dispute revolves around labeling regulations issued in February that require U.S. producers to indicate the country of origin of food including cuts of beef, poultry, lamb, chicken and pork, plus fruits, vegetables and some nuts. When the regulations were first announced, they were flexible and "seemed to address Canadian concerns" that meat from Canada not be unfairly targeted, Day said. Even so, some U.S. producers have already refused or segregated Canadian-born animals because of the new rules.

The U.S. agriculture secretary, has since asked meat packers to voluntarily comply with even stricter country-of-origin rules detailing where an animal was born, raised and slaughtered - having considered the original labeling rule to be too lax - and has threatened to impose new mandatory rules if food producers don't comply voluntarily. Canada has asked the Obama administration to clarify its position. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Canadian pork exports to the U.S. have dropped by more than 40 per cent this year. Cattle exports have fallen by 25 per cent over the same period - and Canadian producers blame country-of-origin labeling. Livestock exports to the U.S. are typically worth $4 billion annually to the Canadian industry. The complaint with over meat products marks the latest of several trade disputes that have percolated since the Obama administration took office. Earlier this month, the U.S. imposed a temporary duty on some Canadian softwood lumber products amid complaints Canada had failed to pay a $54.8-million arbitration award. Canadian companies have complained that a recent bill - the Water Quality Investment Act of 2009 - bars them from bidding on waste and sewer treatment infrastructure projects.

April 28, 2009  Serbia.  Serbia may successfully complete all negotiations by the end of this year, and upon completion the Serbian parliament must have adopted the necessary laws by then, in order to join the WTO. If negotiations are not completed by the end of 2009, Serbia will be the only country in the region not a member of the WTO - it is required that two thirds of WTO member states vote for Serbia’s accession. WTO membership is a precondition for EU entry. Talks have been successfully concluded with Norway and Switzerland - Serbia must still conclude negotiations with the EU, Japan, Korea, China, Brazil, El Salvador, Ecuador, Canada and the U.S. Talks with the U.S. are of key significance, most likely talks with the EU will be completed first, as soon as parliament adopts the necessary laws. The main obstacles to Serbia’s WTO accession are the liberalization of services in the telecommunication and financial sectors, free trade, environmental protection and sanitary measures.

April 27, 2009  Ecuador.  Members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) failed to agree on Friday on a proposal to back moves by Ecuador to restrict imports because of balance of payments problems. Ecuador is optimistic a deal will be reached soon, but no date for a resumption of the talks was set when they adjourned. It also underlines the difficulties faced by the international community in agreeing on sensitive trade measures in a climate of concern about protectionism as global trade slumps in the worst recession since World War II. A conclusive failure to agree a waiver to WTO rules could in theory allow other WTO members to launch a trade dispute with Ecuador for not abiding by international trade agreements.

April 24, 2009  Mexico - U.S. truck dispute.  The U.S. has promised to move quickly to open U.S. roads to Mexican trucks in order to halt Mexico's retaliation on $2.4 billion in U.S. exports. The United States committed in that 15-year-old pact to open its roads to Mexican trucks. But the International Brotherhood of Teamsters union, which represents U.S. truckers, has fought that measure every step of the way. Mexico retaliated in March after Obama signed legislation canceling a pilot program developed under former President George W. Bush to allow Mexican trucks to operate in the United States. U.S. lawmakers said they killed the program because of safety concerns, but Mexican officials said the real reason was U.S. protectionism. The U.S. Transportation Secretary has been leading the Obama administration's effort to come up with a new proposal that would open the border to Mexican trucks. Mexico has suggested the lifting of tariffs which cause an increase in the cost of imported goods. The current duties range from 10 to 45 percent on approximately $1.56 billion worth of U.S. manufactured goods and $892 million of agricultural goods - based on 2007 trade volumes.

April 23, 2009  Pending U.S. free trade deals.  A movement initiated by a Democratic senator is moving to further tie up pending free-trade agreements with Panama, Colombia and South Korea.  Legislation will soon be introduced in order to effectively delay congressional consideration of the proposed free-trade pacts drafted under President Bush. The Obama administration has indicated it is moving forward on the Colombia deal and is optimistic about the pending agreement with Panama. Obama has dispatched U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk to meet with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe to discuss U.S. concerns over Colombia's treatment of labor leaders. That issue is seen as a main roadblock in efforts to win U.S. congressional support for the deal. U.S. officials have also expressed optimism about the pending agreement with Panama, with an administration official saying recently that minor labor issues seem resolvable. The proposed South Korean agreement still faces strong opposition from segments of the auto industry. Free trade is a sensitive issue, particularly among labor leaders and lawmakers from manufacturing states that have seen jobs move overseas.

April 22, 2009  IMF report.  With the global economic downturn deepening and confidence in the financial system still elusive, the International Monetary Fund estimates that banks and other financial institutions face aggregate losses of $4.1 trillion in the value of their holdings as a result of the crisis. In its global financial stability report, released Tuesday, the fund estimated that financial institutions would have to write down an estimated $2.7 trillion in loans and securities originating in the United States from 2007 to 2010. That estimate is up from $2.2 trillion in the fund’s report in January, and $1.4 trillion last October. The financial crisis “is likely to be deep and long-lasting,” the report said, noting that global financial stability had deteriorated further since its October report, in emerging markets and particularly in Europe, where banks face more write-downs and may require fresh equity, even as businesses seek to refinance debt.

April 21, 2009  G20 Summary.  The major success of the London summit was the agreement to triple resources available to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to US$750-billion, support a US$250-billion increase in special drawing rights - the IMF's quasi-currency - and provide US$250-billion over two years to facilitate international trade. In March, the World Trade Organization (WTO) warned that the credit crunch had caused a shortfall between US$100-billion and US$300-billion for loans to ensure payment to exporters, especially in emerging markets. The G20 also agreed to reform financial regulations and global financial institutions, to better protect against financial crises in the future and provide the emerging economies with a greater stake in the system. However, the details for financial reform still must be agreed upon and the deadline for negotiations for the new balance of power in the IMF is 2011.

On the down side, the G20 announced no new fiscal or banking initiatives to support the global economy. Prior to the summit, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (the advanced countries' club) warned that discretionary stimulus measures by governments for 2009 and 2010 were insufficient to kick start the global economy. Professor Martin Feldstein of Harvard University indicated the U.S. stimulus packages (the most extreme of any major economy) will offset just 40% of lost demand in the U.S. economy in 2009 and 2010. In addition, the G20 did nothing to counter the structural imbalances haunting the global economy. According to Martin Wolf of the Financial Times, fiscal deficits as a proportion of gross domestic product are now generally far bigger in countries with ongoing current account deficits (for example, the U.S. and Britain) than in those with current account surpluses (for example, China, Germany and Japan). This is a concern, especially since international trade is collapsing and insidious protectionism is on the rise. On March 23, the WTO predicted that global merchandise trade will plunge 9% this year - the first fall since 1982 and the steepest drop since the Second World War. In addition, Japan's exports were down by almost one half in February from a year earlier; yet imports dropped enough that the country still recorded a trade surplus.

Despite the G20 pledging to adopt no new protectionist measures for one year at its Washington summit in November 2008 (a pledge repeated at the recent summit), 17 members of the group have since implemented 47 trade-restricting measures. Those measures include raising tariffs on specific goods (but within WTO limits), banning specific products for safety and environmental reasons, and anti-dumping measures - imposing extra duties on goods supposedly dumped at below cost by exporters. The protectionist measure of choice among advanced countries is subsidies. In the U.S. and Europe, governments are scrambling to bail out not just financial institutions but also auto companies.

April 20, 2009  China.  China has launched the first World Trade Organization case against the Obama administration Friday, challenging a U.S. ban on Chinese poultry. In a submission to the WTO, Beijing said Washington was violating a number of global commerce rules by preventing Chinese chicken parts from entering the U.S. market. Its request for consultation kicks off a 60-day consultation period, after which it can ask the WTO to launch a formal investigation. The WTO can authorize sanctions against countries failing to comply with trade rules, but usually after years of litigation. China and the U.S. banned each others' poultry in 2004 following an outbreak of bird flu. But China lifted the ban after a few months and complains that Washington refuses to do the same. Since 2004, China has imported more than 4 million tons of U.S. poultry - mostly feet and other parts of birds that are popular in China but not elsewhere. Beijing is protesting a measure in the 2009 U.S. federal spending bill, signed by Obama in March, that extended the U.S. ban by blocking any funds from being used to facilitate imports of poultry products from China.

April 17, 2009  Fifth Summit of the Americas.  In Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago - April 17-19 - the fifth Summit of the Americas brings together the Heads of State and Government of the Western Hemisphere to discuss common concerns, seek solutions and develop a shared vision for their future development of the region, be it economic, social or political in nature.

April 16, 2009  Germany.  Germany has announced plans to ban the only genetically modified strain of corn grown in the European Union, dealing a new blow to the American manufacturer, Monsanto, and raising the specter of trade tensions with the United States. The German agriculture minister, said that the move was intended to protect the safety of consumers and the environment. But she underlined that it would not represent a blanket ban on genetically modified crops. The European Commission, the executive body, has been pushing member governments to ease rules on genetically modified crops to enable greater quantities of lower cost foods and animal feeds to be grown in Europe. The commission has also been seeking to ease tensions with Argentina, Canada and the United States, where modified crops are grown.

Those countries won a lawsuit at the World Trade Organization in 2006 obliging the European Union to ease remaining bans on the import and cultivation of genetically modified products. The United States still could impose punitive duties on the Europeans for continuing to block trade. Spain grows about 80,000 hectares of the genetically modified corn, the largest quantity in the European Union. Germany grows 3,000 hectares out of its total corn crop of about 2 million hectares, making the move to ban the crop in Germany highly symbolic. The Czech Republic, Portugal and Poland are among countries still growing the crop, while France and Luxembourg are among countries to have recently imposed bans on cultivation. The European Food Safety Authority currently is reviewing the Monsanto product because European Union consent to market the product has expired. Even so, E.U. rules allow the product to remain on the market during the authority’s assessment.

April 15, 2009  Oil.  As OPEC nations make their biggest oil production cuts on record, Brazil, Russia and the U.S. are pumping more, threatening to send crude back below $50 a barrel as demand slows. U.S. imports from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries fell 818,000 barrels a day, or 14 percent, to 5.02 million in January from a year earlier, according to the latest monthly report from the Energy Department. At the same time, imports from Brazil more than doubled to 397,000 and Russia’s increased almost 10-fold to 157,000, a trend that continued in February and March, according to data from each country.  Imports fell by 148,000 barrels a day in January just as America’s production increased by 153,000, according to data compiled by the Energy Department in Washington. More oil is flowing just as the slowing economy causes consumption to contract for the second consecutive year.

April 15, 2009  Nike.  Sportswear producer Nike states that it will stop orders with three footwear factories in China and one in Vietnam as the global downturn forces the company to trim output. The sportswear giant has 640 factories on a contract basis across the world, with 72 focusing on footwear. The factories hire approximately 800,000 workers. China is Nike's largest sourcing country for footwear, apparel and equipment, with Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand and South Korea an integral part of its global supply chain network, according to the statement. It has also announced that it could cut up to 1,400 jobs, or four percent of its 35,000 workforce, due to the global economic crisis.

April 14, 2009  Japanese memory chips.  Japan plans to scrap a tariff on memory chips made by Hynix Semiconductor Inc. from April 23. The final recommendation by a government panel to scrap the tariff will need approval at a Cabinet meeting on April 17, and an official announcement will be made on April 22. Hynix expects to increase sales of its memory chips in Japan after the tariff is scrapped, and aims to boost its market share in the country to more than 20 percent from about 15 percent now, the Ichon, South Korea-based company said in a statement. The decision follows a similar removal of duties on Hynix, the world’s second-largest computer-memory chipmaker, by the European Union and the U.S. last year. Japan on Sept. 1 lowered the duty on Hynix’s chips to 9.1 percent from 27.2 percent and in October started a review of the levies.  Japan began imposing tariffs on Hynix’s chips in January 2006, after chipmakers including Elpida Memory Inc. complained that financial support for the company from South Korea’s government amounted to subsidies.  A World Trade Organization arbitrator ruled in May that Japan must bring its tariff measures on chips imported from Hynix in line with global rules by Sept. 1, 2008. Hynix had continuously requested that Japan scrap duties on its semiconductors.

April 13, 2009  South Korea.  South Korea says it will respond aggressively to a Canadian move to take a bilateral dispute over beef to the World Trade Organization. Ottawa says WTO consultations provide an opportunity for parties to resolve disputes through discussions, and if the consultations fail, the complaining party can ask that the issue be referred to a WTO dispute settlement panel. South Korea banned Canadian beef in May 2003 over fears of mad cow disease, but Canada argues the World Organization for Animal Health recognized Canada as a "controlled risk" country in 2007 for beef - the same status as the United States. U.S. beef was banned from South Korea over mad cow disease worries in December 2003, though restricted imports are now allowed. Eating meat products contaminated with mad cow disease is linked to variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a rare and fatal human malady.

April 10, 2009  Canada.  Canada filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization asking South Korea to lift a ban on Canadian beef exports imposed during an outbreak of mad cow disease. Canada has asked for a consultation on the case, and if that fails, a dispute settlement panel may be needed, the Trade Minister, stated in a statement from Ottawa. Before the ban was imposed in 2003, South Korea was the one of the largest markets for Canadian beef, with exports valued at $50 million Canadian dollars ($41 million) a year. South Korea last June reopened its market to beef from the United States.

April 9, 2009  Globalization.  The recent G20 summit was significant not only as a representation of how globalized the world has become – China, India, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, and other developing countries sat down with the US, the EU, and Japan – but also that there was sufficient agreement to plan a further meeting. But, as has been argued, the dire strait of the world economy needs short term solutions not historical events. And in this regard, the summit fell short. Leaders failed to address the imbalance between surplus exporters and deficit importers. The $1 trillion pledged to the IMF also falls short of necessary funding. The Europeans seemed more concerned in preventing the next crisis through promoting tighter regulation and attacking tax havens than digging the world out of its current hole. Despite the commitment to free trade, an overwhelming majority of the countries present at the summit have enacted some type of protectionist measure. Perhaps the most important issue of this crisis, which was not discussed, is how the established economies and emerging powers Brazil, Russia, India and China will integrate beyond simple trading relationships. Additionally, what role China – now the third largest economy – will play on the world stage remains opaque. Still, the G20 represents a first step in accepting how globalized the world has become. The next step is to put action behind that realization.

April 8, 2009  China.  China’s stimulus plan may fuel the nation’s economic recovery this year, helping counter a global recession that is likely to drag growth in Asia’s developing countries to the weakest in 11 years, the World Bank has stated. Developing East Asia, which excludes Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore, will expand 5.3 percent this year, less than a December estimate of 6.7 percent, the Washington-based lender said in its semi-annual report today - growth was 8 percent last year. China’s 4 trillion-yuan ($585 billion) stimulus has already driven investment back to pre-crisis levels, fuelled rebounds in electricity and steel output, and restored consumer confidence, the lender said. Asian governments have unveiled more than $700 billion in spending, tax cuts and cash handouts, and the World Bank said countries like China and Thailand can afford more. China’s Purchasing Managers Index rose for the first time in six months in March, signaling that manufacturing is expanding again, the Federation of Logistics and Purchasing said last week. Urban fixed-asset investment in the world’s third- biggest economy jumped 26.5 percent in the first two months of 2009, new bank lending quadrupled in February and vehicle sales rose 25 percent the same month. China’s recovery is particularly good news for commodity- exporting nations, including Indonesia, Mongolia and Malaysia, the World Bank stated.

April 7, 2009  African transport.  International donors and lenders yesterday pledged $1.2 billion for projects to improve road and rail links between eight southern African countries. The aim is to reduce transportation bottlenecks and bring down costs along the main trading routes through South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Tanzania, Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi, Botswana and Mozambique. World Trade Organization director-general Pascal Lamy told participants at a two-day conference that there was an urgent need for Africa to speed up the completion of a North-South transportation corridor. He said more trade between the African nations would help to stimulate growth and investment. International lending institutions and donor governments promised $1.2 billion toward the project - with half coming from the African Development Bank over the next three years. The World Bank pledged $340 million, with additional support from the European Union and Britain.

April 6, 2009  Caribbean.  The acceleration of trade integration in the Caribbean is essential to boost the region’s growth, create jobs, and reduce poverty, states the World Bank. Geneva, Switzerland, April 3, 2009- The report argues that despite their small size, economies in the Caribbean must strive to become more competitive to fully reap the benefits of global trade integration. The report, “Caribbean: Accelerating Trade Integration. Policy Options for Sustained Growth, Job Creation, and Poverty Reduction,” presented today at the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Committee on Trade and Development, acknowledges the region’s efforts in pursuing an external trade policy over the past three decades anchored on preferential access to the European and North American markets, but stresses that the Caribbean’s integration into the world economy has been slow and compares poorly with some Asian countries with similar levels of integration 30 years ago.

Economic growth in the Caribbean countries is expected to slow down relative to 2007 as these economies have been hit hard by recent shocks, including a recession in the U.S. economy, the global financial crisis, and a period of high food and fuel prices. Lower economic growth and consumption in North America and Europe could reduce exports, remittances, tourism, foreign direct investment and foreign aid. With an aggregate GDP of about US$70 billion in 2005 and a population of about 25 million people, the Caribbean economy is relatively small, three times smaller than Ireland’s. Growth performance has varied widely across countries and has been highly volatile: St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada, and Antigua and Barbuda have had the highest growth trend in the long-run, whereas Haiti, Jamaica, and Guyana, the slowest.

April 3, 2009  G20 decisions.  World leaders have agreed on a regulatory blueprint for reining in the excesses that fed the worst financial crisis in six decades and pledged more than $1 trillion in emergency aid to cushion the economic fallout.  The Group of 20 policy makers, meeting in London, called for stricter limits on hedge funds, executive pay, credit-rating firms and risk-taking by banks. They tripled the firepower of the International Monetary Fund and offered cash to revive trade to help governments weather the turmoil resulting from the surge in unemployment. They avoided the divisive question of whether to deliver more fiscal stimulus to their own economies.  The statement amounts to an effort to rewrite the rules of capitalism to address an integrated world economy that has outgrown the ability of nations to keep it in check. The assembly echoed - on an international stage - the introduction in the U.S. of securities regulation after the 1929 crash.

Blaming “major failures” in regulation as “fundamental causes” of the credit crunch, the G-20 said national regulators will be revamped to better monitor threats to the international system.  A new Financial Stability Board will be established to unite regulators and join the IMF in providing early warnings of potential threats. Once recovery is underway, work will begin on new rules aimed at avoiding excessive leverage and forcing banks to put more money aside during good times.

April 2, 2009  Netherlands and South Korea.  In a rare joint appeal, the leaders of the Netherlands and South Korea urged their G-20 partners Wednesday to give the World Trade Organization a lead role in keeping trade open at a time of worldwide recession. They suggested, however,  that this should be accompanied by closer trade monitoring. Last week, the 153-member WTO in Geneva forecast a 9 percent slump in global trade this year. The call to let the WTO keep tabs on protectionist acts by governments would exceed the mandate of the organization and will unlikely be warmly received at the summit. The WTO now only provides governments a forum for negotiating trade accords and settling any disputes arising from them. Both the Netherlands and Korea are highly dependent on trade.

April 2, 2009  Japan.  Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso will pledge fresh support for trade financing and offer up to $20 billion in aid for Asia at a G20 summit on the global economic crisis. In a meeting with Indonesia's representatives ahead of the summit, Aso said he would offer a fresh $22 billion in support for trade with developing countries. The initiative follows a $1 billion aid scheme Tokyo unveiled in February to boost trade in Asia, which reflected its growing concern of the damage shrinking global trade and liquidity is having on many of its export-reliant Asian neighbors. Japan would also offer up to 2 trillion yen ($20 billion) in overseas development assistance to Asia to help the region's economies spur domestic demand.

April 1, 2009  U.S.  The U.S. government will develop a list of the most significant barriers to U.S. exports and then prosecute those cases through the World Trade Organization or the appropriate bilateral forum, the U.S. Trade Representative's office stated yesterday. Kirk, who took office less than two weeks ago, said in a statement U.S. trade officials were beginning a review to identify the most significant barriers for possible prosecution at the WTO or other enforcement action. Some examples of barriers included slowing or blocking imports with unjustified concerns about human, animal and plant health, discriminatory excise taxes on imported products, export subsidies for "national" brands, and limits on foreign participation in telecommunications markets, the USTR said. Kirk said he also will review agreements with U.S. free trade partners like Canada, Mexico, Chile, Australia, Peru, Bahrain, Morocco, Oman, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Costa Rica for possible violations, particularly of labor and environmental provisions.

March 31, 2009   Japan.  Japanese companies cut inventories at an unprecedented pace in February and said they would increase production in coming months, indicating the worst of the country’s manufacturing slump may be over.  Inventories fell 4.2 percent last month, the biggest decrease since record-keeping began in 1953, the Trade Ministry said today in Tokyo. Factory output slid 9.4 percent from January, when it plunged a record 10.2 percent. The second monthly reduction in stockpiles brought them to the lowest level since August 2007, today’s report showed. Manufacturers said they’ll raise output 2.9 percent in March and 3.1 percent in April, ending a five-month losing streak.

March 30, 2009  G-20 meets.  It was to be the inauguration of a Global New Deal - a comprehensive policy response to the world economic crisis, a root-and-branch effort to reorder the way capitalism itself works. But by the time the much-heralded Group of 20 meeting of heads of government ends Thursday, it may be difficult to spot a new world order. It is already clear that the summit will mostly fall short of its original lofty goals. Over the past few days, European leaders continued to insist they wouldn't agree to U.S. and British calls for further fiscal stimulus for their ailing economies. According to a draft of the communiqué set to be released when the meeting adjourns, the G-20 leaders will tout a global bailout totaling up to $2 trillion, though that includes a host of measures already announced. What emerges from this week's G-20 meeting "is expected to be a long way from the early high expectations," says Simon Gleeson, a London partner at the law firm Clifford Chance who has advised the U.K. government on financial regulation. "Even the little things seem to be contentious." Officials insist the summit of the G-20, which groups major developed and developing economies, will chalk up impressive achievements.

March 27, 2009  WTO.  World trade volume will fall 9% year this year, the largest decline since World War II due to the global financial crisis, according to a recent forecast by the World Trade Organization. Export volume in developed countries will probably drop 10% while the export volume in the developing nations, whose growth depend more on foreign trade, will fall 2% to 3%, the WTO forecasted. In 2008, the world trade grew 2%, down from the 6% in 2007, with the world's largest exporter Germany seeing US$1.47 trillion in exports, and the second exporter China selling US$1.47 billion worthy of goods to overseas markets. WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy asked the G20 countries to join hands to avoid protectionism in any form since protectionism amid the worsening economic crisis will weaken the effects of the economic stimulus packages in those countries, and delay the recovery of global economy from the crisis.

March 27, 2009  EU and U.S.   An EU investigation “found that U.S. laws on remote gambling and their enforcement against EU companies constitute an obstacle to trade that is inconsistent with WTO rules,” the European Commission said in a statement from Brussels today. “The provisional conclusions of the report imply that WTO proceedings against U.S. measures would be justified.”  The commission, acting on a complaint by European Internet gambling companies, says U.S. authorities targeted European businesses for operating gaming sites while failing to take action against domestic companies that offer similar services. The commission began its probe into the U.S. laws in March 2008.  The core of the industry complaint is that the U.S. Justice Department targets foreign Internet gambling owners - and not domestic firms - under U.S. legislation the WTO says violates international trade obligations. While the U.S. subsequently renounced those commitments and negotiated a settlement with the EU in December 2007, European companies are still subject to legal proceedings based on their past activities in the U.S. online gambling and betting market.

March 26, 2009  Japan.  Japan’s exports plunged a record 49.4 percent in February as deepening recessions in the U.S. and Europe sapped demand for the country’s cars and electronics. Shipments to the U.S., the country’s biggest market, tumbled an unprecedented 58.4 percent from a year earlier, the Finance Ministry has stated. Automobile exports slid 70.9 percent.  The collapse signals gross domestic product may shrink this quarter at a similar pace to the annualized 12.1 percent contraction posted in the previous three months, the sharpest since 1974.

March 25, 2009  South Korea and EU.  South Korea and the European Union neared completion of a trade agreement Tuesday, but left ministers to resolve sticking points over major issues such as auto tariffs. A deal could be reached on the sidelines of the Group of 20 financial summit in London next week, which trade ministers Kim Jong-hoon of South Korea and Catherine Ashton of the EU will attend. That would send a strong anti-protectionism signal at a time when many countries are raising trade barriers in hopes of saving domestic jobs threatened by the global downturn. Even so, ratification could take months or years, as public fears over trade and potential job losses persist. South Korea and the U.S. struck a trade pact two years ago that lawmakers in both countries have yet to ratify. In the South Korea-EU pact, significant differences remain on auto tariffs. South Korea wants to ease out its tariffs on small cars more gradually than those on larger cars. Its domestic auto makers produce small cars in big numbers. In the U.S. deal, South Korea's tariffs on all car imports end at the same time. The EU wants tougher "rules of origin," to prevent products that are, for example, made in China and assembled in Korea, from benefiting under the free-trade deal. It also wants Korea to stop reimbursing domestic companies for customs fees, which gives Korean firms a competitive advantage.

The EU is South Korea's second-largest trading partner after China, and businesses from European countries are the largest foreign investors in South Korea. Two-way trade amounted to $98.4 billion last year, and South Korea had an $18.4 billion surplus in the relationship, according to South Korea's trade ministry.

March 24, 2009  Europe and U.S.  European exports to the U.S. declined the most in five years in 2008 as the global financial crisis curtailed demand in the region’s main trading partners.  Shipments to the U.S., the euro region’s second-biggest trading partner after the U.K., dropped 4 percent last year, the European Union’s statistics office in Luxembourg said today. Exports to the U.K. also fell 4 percent. Overall euro-area exports rose 4 percent in 2008 - the smallest gain in five years.  Total euro-area exports fell 11 percent in January from the previous month, adjusted for seasonal factors, while imports dropped 7.3 percent, today’s report showed. That left the trade deficit at 5.5 billion euros ($7.5 billion), the biggest gap since July 2008.

March 24, 2009  Global trade.  Global trade will plunge 9 percent this year, the most since World War II, as the recession deepens, the World Trade Organization states.  “Economic contraction in most of the industrial world and steep export declines already posted in the early months of this year by most major economies - particularly those in Asia - make for an unusually bleak 2009 trade assessment,” the Geneva- based WTO said in its annual assessment of world trade.  Manufacturers in the U.S., Europe and Asia are struggling as the worst recession in 60 years broadens. Exporters from Volkswagen AG, Europe’s largest automaker, and ThyssenKrupp AG, Germany’s biggest steelmaker, to Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., the largest U.S. tire maker, and Sony Corp., the world’s No. 2 consumer-electronics maker, are slashing output and cutting jobs to cope with collapsing demand.  “The contraction in developed countries will be particularly severe, with exports falling by 10 percent this year,” the report said. “In developing countries, which are far more dependent on trade for growth, exports will shrink by some 2 percent to 3 percent in 2009.” European exports to the U.S. fell the most in five years in 2008 as the financial crisis curtailed demand in the region’s main trading partners, data released on March 23 show. U.S. shipments abroad, which tumbled in January to the lowest level since 2006, have slumped at a 44 percent annual pace in the most recent six months of data, with imports shrinking 51 percent as Americans stop buying everything from OPEC oil to Japanese cars.

March 23, 2009  U.S. and China.  The U.S. and China sparred Friday over a World Trade Organization ruling in a dispute about piracy of DVDs, music, books and other copyright products. The WTO ratified an earlier decision that faulted some, but not all, of China's protections for intellectual property. The case was brought by the Bush administration, brought to present - the newly confirmed trade representative, Ron Kirk, said Friday he looks "forward to China's prompt compliance with the WTO's rulings in this dispute as a positive step toward addressing the continuing challenges of counterfeiting and piracy in China." 

The U.S. filed the claim in 2007, citing three structural problems in China's enforcement laws. The panel, and now the WTO members, sided with the U.S. on two of these, according to the USTR.  The WTO found that Chinese copyright law doesn't provide adequate protection for works that don't meet the country's "content review" standards. On another area, the WTO group said China's customs rules for disposing of goods that violate intellectual-property rights laws were insufficient. Meanwhile, the WTO said it needed more evidence to determine whether China's criminal enforcement standards for piracy and counterfeiting aren't stringent enough, according to the USTR. The U.S. has long complained about piracy of DVDs, music, books and other copyright products in China, which the International Intellectual Property Alliance estimates exceeds $3.5 billion a year.

March 20, 2009  WTO.  The newly confirmed US trade chief and his European counterpart pledged Thursday to work together to stem protectionism and to advance the Doha Round of global trade talks. A joint statement from US Trade Representative Ron Kirk and EU Trade Commissioner Catherine Ashton said the US and European Union agreed "to intensify our efforts to ensure that our bilateral trade relations and our cooperation on multilateral issues of common interest make the strongest possible contribution to global economic recovery." "The European Union and the United States are partners in the world's largest trade relationship," the statement said following a meeting in Washington. "These enormous flows of trade and investment have played a critical role in promoting US and European prosperity, and the markets, growth, and technological advances that transatlantic trade and investment have helped promote have in turn helped promote economic development throughout the world." The two officials expressed support for the so-called Doha Round of World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations, which has been stalled for years in efforts to bring down tariffs and other trade barriers. Ministers have been struggling to agree a trade deal since talks were launched in Doha in 2001 and regular pledges to make progress and complete the round have come to nothing. World leaders had pledged in a meeting in Washington in November to agree a framework agreement before the end of 2008, but World Trade Organization chief Pascal Lamy called off a mooted December gathering due to a lack of consensus.

March 19, 2009  Mexico and U.S.  Mexico apparently plans to retaliate for a decision to block its trucks from U.S. highways by aiming tariffs at states with powerful Democratic leaders. Mexico will publish a tariff list later this week, but based on a draft, it will probably include almonds from the House speaker's state of California, shampoo and sunglasses from the president's state of Illinois, bowling equipment from the Senate majority leader's state of Nevada and books printed in New York, which the secretary of state represented in the Senate. The tariffs, which will be as high as 90 percent, will hit $2.4 billion worth of exports from 40 states.  Congress initiated the trade spat by killing a program allowing a limited number of Mexican trucks into this country - the provision was tacked onto a major spending bill that President Barack Obama signed earlier this month.

March 19, 2009  Trade Chief named.  Ron Kirk was confirmed as U.S. trade representative after pledging to focus on enforcing current trade rules instead of pursuing new agreements. The Senate voted 92-5 to make Kirk the nation’s 16th trade representative.  
Kirk, a former mayor of Dallas, will take over the department just as Mexico said it will put retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods. The move is in response to Congress canceling a program that allowed some Mexican trucks to make long-haul deliveries north of the border. Kirk will also need to handle retaliation by other nations against actions taken by the U.S. Congress. After lawmakers forced the administration to cancel the Mexican truck program and ban poultry imports from China, Mexico said it would impose tariffs on $2.4 billion on American-made imports and China threatened to file a complaint with the World Trade Organization.  Kirk will also face a dispute in Europe, where regulators agreed to impose duties on $895 million of biodiesel imports, saying the U.S. provides manufacturers illegal subsidies, allowing them to undercut their European competitors.

March 18, 2009  World Bank.  The World Bank on Tuesday urged the group of 20 leading developed and developing nations to toughen their stance against protectionism by agreeing to report any new subsidies or trade restricting measures to the World Trade Organization every three months.  "Leaders must not heed the siren-song of protectionist fixes, whether for trade, stimulus packages, or bailouts," World Bank Group President Robert Zoellick said in a statement. "Economic isolationism can lead to a negative spiral of events such as those we saw in the 1930s, which made a bad situation much, much worse."  

March 17, 2009  Recycling trash.  This multibillion-dollar recycling industry has gone into a nose dive, thanks to the global economic crisis and a concomitant fall in commodity prices - bottles now sell for half of what they did in the summer. The collapse of the recycling business has affected trash pickers - the middlemen who buy the waste and the factories that refashion metal, paper, glass and plastic into products bound for supermarket shelves, mall racks and construction sites around the world. American and European waste dealers who sell to China have had their shipments refused when they arrive in Asia.

The ultimate victim may be the environment, already overrun with enough trash in places to threaten people's health, now further burdened with refuse that until recently would have been recycled. The effect is being felt acutely in China, the world's largest trash importer. The United States exported 11.6 million tons of recovered paper and cardboard last year to China, up from 2.1 million tons in 2000, according to the American Forest & Paper Association. More than 70 percent of the materials that feed China's recycling industry come from abroad. The drop in commodity prices was so speedy that in a matter of weeks last fall, container ships carrying used railroad wheels and empty dog food cans arrived in Chinese ports worth far less than their value when they left Newark, New Jersey; Rotterdam; or Los Angeles. The United States exported $22 billion worth of recyclable materials to 152 countries in 2007; the organization estimates the value of American recyclables has now decreased 50 percent to 70 percent. Western dealers say they are grappling with mounting stockpiles whose value in many cases has been sinking. To make matters worse, Chinese importers have been demanding to renegotiate contracts drastically downward. In some cases, they are refusing to accept shipments they have a contractual obligation to take. According to the association, a ton of copper scrap now sells for $3,000, down from more than $8,000 in 2007. Tin is selling for $5 a pound, down from $300. Paper has sagged by as much as 80 percent.

March 16, 2009  Finance.   Service sector businesses around the world have called on leaders of the Group of 20 rich and emerging nations to stiffen their resistance to protectionist measures. The Global Services Coalition said many countries had already breached a G20 pledge last November to refrain from imposing new trade barriers. "These ill-advised inward-looking actions, which continue apace, are significantly compounding the uncertainty already plaguing the world economy," it said in a letter issued ahead of a meeting of G20 financial policymakers. The coalition groups lobbies for service industries from banking to telecoms in dozens of countries, including the United States, European Union, Japan, Canada, Brazil and India. It called on policymakers not to structure stimulus packages in ways that would disrupt trade, arguing that measures to boost demand would inevitably pull in imports in a globalized economy as well as helping domestic businesses.

March 13, 2009  EU.  The European Commission’s release of Provisional Duty Regulations pertaining to anti-dumping and countervailing duty investigations of biodiesel from the United States was not welcomed by U.S. biodiesel producers. To comply with World Trade Organization rules, the EC must prove that harm is being caused to the EU industry before duties are imposed before rendering a final decision later this year. Gene Gebolys, president and CEO of World Energy Alternatives, LLC, added although his company is opposed to the duties, he welcomed them now that they are here. World Energy has operations in North America, Europe, South America and Southeast Asia. "We are about to get the proof that these provisional duties will hurt the European biodiesel industry much more than they will help. U.S. based product has been less of a competitor than a contributor to European biodiesel. U.S. material has primarily been used as a blend stock with European material to make European spec biodiesel cheaper," he said.

March 12, 2009  China.  China, which posted a record drop in exports last month, will file a World Trade Organization complaint against U.S. measures that it says have effectively banned chicken imported from the Asian nation. The U.S. rules on chicken imports are “unfair and malicious,” China’s Ministry of Commerce said today in a statement posted on its Web site. The Asian nation will file a WTO complaint against the U.S. and “retains the right to take further measures,” it said. China’s complaint against the U.S. measures on chicken imports would be the fourth it’s filed since joining the WTO in 2001 and the first since the nation’s exports began four consecutive months of declines in November. The world’s most populous nation lost 3 million jobs in the fourth quarter as economic growth hit a seven-year low, further straining the ruling Communist Party’s ability to maintain social stability. China last month urged the U.S. government to rescind a section of its 2009 spending plan that stipulates no funds made available under the Omnibus Appropriations Act may be used to establish or implement rules allowing the import of Chinese poultry products.

March 11, 2009  WTO.  The World Trade Organization will consider a complaint by Mexico next week alleging that U.S. rules on "dolphin-safe" tuna are illegal. Mexico says U.S. labeling restrictions effectively exclude Mexican tuna from the U.S. market and have caused a third of the nation's tuna fleet to shut down. The Latin American country claims its tuna production complies with international standards on reducing the accidental capture of dolphins. But it says U.S. rules prohibit Mexico from using the "dolphin-safe" label needed to sell the product in the United States. The issue of tuna and dolphins is a sensitive one that pits environment against trade, and originated with the WTO's predecessor body, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.

Mexico won a case in 1991 over a U.S. law that banned imports of tuna caught in nets that also harm dolphins, but the old rules allowed the loser to simply ignore the ruling by exercising its veto power. The WTO, created in 1995, has stricter enforcement powers and can authorize sanctions against countries that violate international trade agreements — but usually after years of litigation.

March 10, 2009  IMF.  The International Monetary Fund will forecast a contraction in world trade this year of five percent or more in the run-up to the April 2 G20 summit of rich and emerging nations. And even that figure - much steeper than the IMF's previous forecast less than two months ago - is likely to turn out to be far too conservative, as trading powers continue to announce double-digit declines in exports. The steep fall in trade - the first contraction since 1982 - is not just a reflection of the recession but shows how the economic interdependence known as globalization is unraveling under the impact of the financial crisis that burst last year. The IMF is likely to present a new economic forecast on March 25 or 26, and this will show trade contracting this year by five percent or more.

The next official update to its World Economic Outlook is due in late April, and the IMF typically provides interim updates to meetings such as the G20 or G7, but does not necessarily publish them. Several countries have reported sharp falls in exports, the latest being Taiwan, which announced on Monday a 28.6 percent drop in exports in February after January's record fall of more than 40 percent, and Chile, unveiling a 42 percent export drop. The new IMF forecast will be studied closely by the G20 leaders, meeting in London early next month to tackle the financial and banking crisis and look at ways of boosting demand, including trade, to pull the world out of recession. In Geneva, the World Trade Organization (WTO) has not yet issued a forecast for this year. WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy cited a 3 percent decline, in line with the last IMF forecast, in Australia and New Zealand last week. The WTO too plans to issue a forecast in time for the G20 meeting, on March 31, a WTO official said.

March 9, 2009  G20 to meet.  Business leaders from the world's advanced and emerging economies will gather in London to map out the challenges to international business on the path to recovery. At a G20 Business Conference in London later this month, the U.K. will seek to gauge how the interventions by international governments in the downturn are impacting on global business, and set out a clear agenda to overcome the remaining obstacles to trade. Business representatives from across the world's advanced and emerging economies, including the G20, have been invited to attend the Conference, which is being held in partnership with the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) on Wednesday March 18. The Conference is intended to be a genuine listening process, but the agenda is expected to consider: the possibility of strengthening the nature of the G20 commitment to reject protectionism, previously outlined in Washington; the government interventions that have been effective in advanced and emerging countries; the obstacles to agreement on the World Trade Organization's Doha Development Agenda; and the decline in availability and increasing cost of trade finance. 

March 6, 2009  U.S. "protectionist" comment.  U.S. President Barack Obama stated Tuesday that he wants Congress to make changes to the controversial “Buy American” provision in its nearly $900-billion economic stimulus legislation, warning it would be a “mistake” for the United States to put up new barriers when global trade is already suffering. Mr. Obama said he opposes any provisions “that are going to be a violation of World Trade Organization agreements, or in other ways signal protectionism” by the United States. The comments marked Mr. Obama’s first public statements on a controversy that erupted with the passage in the House of Representatives last week of a stimulus bill that bans the use of foreign-made iron or steel in projects launched to jump-start the ailing U.S. economy. Canada has warned the U.S. would “lose its moral authority” to stave off protectionism if the final bill adopted by Congress includes the Buy American measure. Mr. Obama has asked lawmakers to pass a final bill for his signature as early as next week. In Ottawa, Prime Minister Stephen Harper called the “Buy American” provision a threat to all industrialized countries.

Opponents of the Buy American measure -- including Canada and the European Union -- acknowledge it will be difficult to convince lawmakers to completely strip the provision from the final version of the bill.  Instead, critics are focusing their efforts on convincing the Senate to pass amendments allowing for broad exceptions to the Buy American rule.  Failing that, Buy American opponents hope the Senate will adopt the more restrictive language approved by the House, which includes some caveats to waive the U.S.-only rule on steel and iron if it’s deemed too costly or not in the public interest.

March 5, 2009  WTO.  A meeting of world trade ministers to finalize the Doha Round of negotiations could be held early in the northern hemisphere summer, World Trade Organization director-general Pascal Lamy has stated. Negotiations could be reconvened once the new United States administration had established its trade policies and India had held general elections. Lamy said the G20 meeting of trade ministers in four weeks could lay the ground work to restart the talks, which stalled last year when a final agreement could not be reached on two key areas, agriculture and industry.

The G20 group of rich and emerging nations in November called for ministers to outline a deal by the end of 2008 but Lamy did not call a meeting of trade ministers because political differences were too wide, and the new U.S. administration was yet to take office. Lamy claimed that reaching a final agreement last year would have paved the way for the completion of other areas of Doha Round such as services negotiations, the reduction of fisheries subsidies as well as addressing trade related environmental issues.

March 4, 2009  EU biotech crops.  European Union governments delivered a blow Monday to the biotechnology industry, allowing Austria and Hungary to maintain national bans on growing genetically modified crops from Monsanto. The vote, taken by European environment ministers, could irritate the U.S. government, which has in the past complained to the World Trade Organization about obstacles to planting bioengineered crops. The vote also was a blow to the European Commission, the EU executive arm. The commission has sought in recent years to ease the restrictions in Europe on gene-altered crops, in part to keep down the cost of animal feed. The market for genetically engineered crops is worth several billion dollars worldwide. Only one genetically altered crop is currently grown in Europe: a form of corn, called MON 810, produced by Monsanto and other companies.

In 2003, the United States, Argentina and Canada brought complaints about the EU's biotechnology policies at the WTO, which ruled in 2006 that a de facto ban on imports of genetically modified foods between 1984 and 2004 violated trade rules. Since that ruling, the commission has required Austria to drop its ban on imports of genetically modified foods. But some other countries have maintained bans on imports and cultivation of such crops, and the United States still could impose punitive duties on the Europeans for continuing to block trade.

March 3, 2009  WTO.  The head of the World Trade Organization praised Brazil for its open-minded trade decisions and cautiously welcomed the U.S. stimulus package, saying countries battling the global economic crisis must resist the pressure of protectionism. In late January, Brazil announced new restrictions on 60 percent of imported products, apparently in reaction to perceived protectionism in the proposed American stimulus package. But Silva reversed the decision almost immediately, his government explaining that they did not want Brazil to be identified with protectionism. The runner-up prize, WTO Director-General Lamy said, would go to President Barack Obama for his $787 billion economic stimulus package that honors international trade commitments, softening a restrictive "Buy American" policy that was written into the initial package. The plan still favors U.S. steel, iron and manufactured goods for government projects funded by the package but would require Washington not to violate trade agreements when implementing the law.

March 2, 2009  Ecuador.  Posters plastered on the walls of supermarket chains across this Andean nation proudly declare "Ecuador First." But for many shoppers, buying domestic is no longer really a matter of choice. In what may be the world's most protectionist response to the global economic crisis, Ecuador's leftist government has imposed import restrictions on everything from Peruvian shampoo to Chilean grapes and U.S.-made running shoes. Ecuador is particularly vulnerable because it is one of only a few countries in the world — El Salvador and Panama are the next biggest — that have adopted the U.S. dollar as their currencies. It can't print its own money so it uses currency printed in the United States. A severe trade deficit could thus drain Ecuador of dollars, potentially causing economic collapse. The barriers affect 627 types of goods and take one of three forms: import volume decreases up to 35 percent; import duty increases to between 30-35 percent; or surcharges such as $12 per kilogram for textiles and $10 per pair for shoes.

March 2, 2009  Asean. Leaders of Southeast Asia's struggling economies met on Sunday to urge major trading partners such as the U.S. and the European Union to continue opening up trade, even as many of the countries in the region grapple with protectionist legacies back home and rising pressure to repudiate free trade as the global economic slowdown worsens. The ten-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations signed a free-trade agreement with Australia and New Zealand during its annual summit to add some meat to its pitch, which it intends to take to the coming Group of 20 nations summit in London this April. That trade pact with Australia and New Zealand, scheduled to take effect in December this year, is projected to expand trade among the 12 countries by $48 billion by 2020. But Asean leaders say they are anxious for more.

Several Asean members – notably Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore – are heavily dependent on exports to fuel their economies. Since the onset of the global financial crisis, which was triggered by an escalation of toxic assets held by banks in the U.S., they have seen their economies contract or sharply slow as the economic situation in the U.S. and other major nations deteriorates. Malaysia's gross domestic product expanded by a meager 0.1% in the fourth quarter compared with the year-earlier period while Thailand's economy shrank 4.3% in the same period. Singapore has warned that its economy could contract by over 5% this year.

The regional trade group, which originated in 1967 as bulwark against the spread of Communism and which has since expanded to embrace the Communist states of Vietnam and Laos, is struggling to present a united political front.

This summit is the first since Asean adopted a charter in December which calls for its members to adhere to a code of basic freedoms and human rights. The group has faced increasing criticism from the U.S. and other major trading partners for failing to take action against human rights abuses, especially in military-run Myanmar, and the new code was designed to create a new, "caring and sharing" Asean, in the words of Thai leader Mr. Abhisit. The trade bloc also commissioned a new regional anthem and has adopted cartoon characters representing each nation that make friends with a visiting extra-terrestrial named Blue in a new comic.

February 27, 2009  U.S. business.  Leading U.S. business groups urged President Barack Obama to push for a change in the overall direction of long-running world trade talks and said it was more urgent now to stop the spread of protectionist measures than to finish a deal. "We believe the most pressing trade issue is to take immediate steps to stop the spread of protectionist measures fueled by the global economic slowdown," said the groups, whose members represent a broad cross-section of the business community that long have been the most forceful advocates for completing the seven-year-old Doha round talks. A set of texts proposed in December by negotiating chairmen at the World Trade Organization "have produced a badly imbalanced result and we do not view them as the basis for advancing the negotiations," the business groups said. "The Doha round cannot proceed, let alone succeed, until the negotiating texts are revised to provide balance and greater ambition from the advanced developing countries," they said, in a veiled jab at India, China and Brazil.

February 26, 2009  Japan.  Japan's exports plunged 45.7% in January compared with a year ago to hit the lowest figure in 10 years, official figures have shown. Imports exceeded exports by 952.6bn yen ($9.9bn; £6.8bn). It is the largest gap since records began in 1980. Demand for Japanese cars in particular dropped by 69%.  Trade in electronics and other goods has also slumped as global economies and consumer spending contract, pushing Japan deeper into recession.  Japanese exports to the US, where the global downturn began, fell nearly 53% in January, while shipments to the European Union shrank by 47%.

February 25, 2009  U.S. food labels.  The Obama administration is calling for stricter labels on fresh meat and other foods that would show more clearly where an animal or food came from. In calling for the stricter guidelines, the Obama administration would be breaking from rules announced by the Agriculture Department shortly before President George W. Bush left office. Supporters of the labeling law — first enacted in a wide-ranging farm bill last year — were not happy with the Bush administration's version of the rules, which they said allowed meat companies to be vague about where an animal was born, raised and slaughtered. If the industry does not comply with the stricter guidelines, the administration will write new rules. The labeling requirements, which would apply to fresh meats and some perishable fruits and vegetables, have long been debated in Congress. While the meat industry and retailers responsible for the labels have protested the changes — saying they are burdensome and could lead to higher prices — consumer groups and northern state ranchers who compete with the Canadian beef industry favor them. All sides worked out a compromise during debate over the farm bill last year, but much of the law was left open to interpretation by the Agriculture Department.

February 24, 2009  EU and U.S. bio-fuels.  The European Union is preparing to impose trade duties on bio-fuels imported from the United States to prevent American producers from putting European producers of bio-diesel out of business. Bio-fuels are developing into a big business, with annual sales of about €8 billion, or $10 billion, in Europe, and with imports of bio-diesel from the United States worth about €1 billion. The European Union and the United States generously subsidize their bio-diesel industries. But European producers complain that producers in the United States benefit twice: from subsidies by the federal government to produce the bio-diesel and again from subsidies granted by individual European governments when it is sold in Europe.

EU trade officials began a formal investigation last year after European bio-fuel producers complained about unfair support for American producers. EU officials have said they suspect that the subsidies consist of federal excise and income tax credits along with a federal program of grants for increases in production, as well as various subsidies from state governments. Europe makes large amounts of bio-diesel from plant oils like canola and sunflowers. But the Continent, where diesel-powered cars and trucks are widespread, is also a net importer of diesel, including bio-diesel made from crops like soybeans in the United States.

February 23, 2009  U.S.-China relations.  There appears to be much optimism of stronger U.S.-China ties after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton completed her visit to Beijing on the final leg of her Asian tour. That will be no easy achievement, however, as the politics move from high-level diplomacy to the bread-and-butter issues of trade and jobs.  Both countries have a lot riding on getting along. While the U.S. is China's largest export market, China sits on a huge pile of U.S. Treasury notes that make up the bulk of its $1.95 trillion of foreign reserves. Still, the global financial crisis has placed new strains on the U.S.-China relationship, bringing with it added pressure to look after number one first. Getting some of the 20 million recently unemployed migrant workers back into jobs after the wheels came off China's export machine is a leading concern for Beijing. There were 17.5% fewer Chinese exports shipped last month compared to a year earlier, which explains why there are fewer jobs around.  Another casualty of the financial crisis is foreign direct investment. Last week, the Ministry of Commerce revealed FDI destined for China fell 33% in January from a year earlier to $7.54 billion. 

February 20, 2009  G20.  The world's 20 greatest powers (G20) must revive the moribund Doha round of talks on an international trade agreement to stave off the threat of protectionism sparked by the economic crisis, the head of the EU's executive states. Highlighting the danger of protectionism within the EU, the European Commission was called on to make sure that the 27-member bloc's rules on free trade were upheld. Protectionism 'would be the wrong answer to the current economic crisis, and here I see the commission as the guarantor of (EU) rules and the basic principles of the internal market.' Alarm bells have rung in Europe in recent weeks over national calls in France and Spain, in particular, to support local car makers, with member states which specialize in manufacturing, such as the Czech Republic, warning that such schemes could endanger subsidiary factories on their territory. 

The Doha round of trade talks, begun in the World Trade Organization in 2001, is aimed at liberalizing global trade flows, but appeared to collapse in July after a row between the US and major developing economies over agricultural import rules. Subsequent attempts to revive the talks have so far been unsuccessful. G20 leaders are set to meet in London on April 2 to discuss a global response to the world economic crisis.

February 20, 2009  U.S. - China.  The global financial crisis is bringing out the worst in the trade relationship between the United States and China. After three years of largely friendly talks about economic issues, both in the past few weeks have blamed the other for the world's problems. U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner accused China of "manipulating" its currency, vowing in written testimony submitted for his confirmation hearing that the United States would act aggressively to remedy the situation. The U.S. Trade Representative's office, in a harshly worded and wide-ranging complaint to the World Trade Organization in December, alleged that China uses cash grants, cheap loans and other subsidies to illegally aid its exporters.  China, for its part, has bashed the "Buy America" program embedded in the just-passed stimulus package, calling it "poison to the solution" of the global economic crisis. At the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos three weeks ago, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, without naming the United States explicitly, blamed the financial crisis on unsupervised capitalism. The crisis has pushed the China-U.S. relationship to a flash point. From now on, it will either become more stable or more confrontational," said Mei Xinyu, a trade expert with the Chinese Commerce Ministry's research arm.

February 19, 2009  Presidential visit.  U.S. President Obama will make his first official presidential visit to Canada today - with a working lunch and a joint news conference. He will also meet briefly with Liberal opposition leader Michael Ignatieff at the airport before he leaves. When Bush visited in 2004, about 8,000 Canadians protested largely because of America's actions in Iraq - it is expected that Obama will be met with great cheers.

February 18, 2009  U.S. stimulus package signed.  U.S. President Barrack Obama signed the massive, nearly 1,100-page American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 before an audience of 250 business and community leaders seated on folding chairs in an atrium of Denver's Museum of Nature and Science. Obama called the stimulus measure the most sweeping economic legislation passed in the nation's history. He said the law will fund record investments in education, new energy research and new infrastructure -- spending that he said will lay the foundation for the nation's economic future. The package includes a $400 tax break for most individual workers and $800 for married couples, including those who do not earn enough to pay income taxes.  At the same time, the legislation expands social safety net programs and increases food stamp and child nutrition programs. There are also increased unemployment benefits and health care access for those thrown out of work.

The bill passed the House Friday by a vote of 246 to 183 and was approved that night in the Senate by 60 to 38. No House Republicans voted for the package. In the Senate, only three Republicans supported the bill, narrowly giving it a filibuster-proof majority and handing Obama a major legislative victory within his first month in office.

February 17, 2009  G7 meets.  The G7 economies are struggling to produce a collective response to the worst downturn in decades, raising the danger that an upcoming G20 meeting could in turn hit trouble over the looming issue of trade protectionism. In Rome, finance ministers of the G7 free-market democracies issued a statement on Saturday where they pledged to do all they could to restore economic stability and respect a commitment to free trade -- and to work as a team in doing so. That was predictable to the extent few suspected the meeting would hatch novel remedies for the recession engulfing them all. What was striking was that the G7 ministers' call for free trade sat so uneasily with some of the policies being adopted on their own turf, most noticeably in the United States at the very moment they were meeting. The U.S. Congress adopted an economic stimulus plan with a "buy America" clause that prescribes the use of U.S.-made iron, steel and other materials in infrastructure building projects that will get billions of dollars of public funding. Such a shortfall within what is supposed to be a relatively like-minded group of G7 governments augurs poorly for the next phase, where the search for a response to the worst crisis since the Great Depression moves to the G20 and a summit on April 2.

February 16, 2009  U.S. honors President's Day.

February 13, 2009  U.S. stimulus bill.  The United States Senate passed a stimulus bill on Tuesday that includes controversial ‘Buy American’ purchasing requirements for iron, steel and manufactured products, but also carries a clause guaranteeing that the domestic-sourcing provisions do not violate the US’ international trade obligations. The US$ 838 billion package, which passed in a 67-31 vote, is intended to jump-start the flagging US economy by providing an influx of funds for everything from school construction to unemployment benefits to an expanded tax credit for first-time home buyers. But at least one section of the bill – the ‘Buy American’ requirements – has caught the attention of US trading partners, who have been closely tracking congressional debates on the matter. The House version of the stimulus bill, passed on 28 January, includes domestic sourcing requirements for iron and steel - the Senate version passed yesterday goes one step further, extending the measure to all manufactured goods. Negotiations among policymakers from the Senate, House, and the White House began immediately after senators finished voting. Their task is now to reconcile differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill, while ensuring that the compromise they strike will receive the signature of US President Barack Obama, who has said he wants the final version of the bill on his desk by 16 February, the Presidents’ Day holiday in the US. Thus, it remains to be seen how – or even whether – the controversial Buy American provisions will appear in that final compromise legislation.

February 12, 2009  China.  China’s exports fell by the most in almost 13 years as demand dried up in the U.S. and Europe and imports plunged by a record, signaling a deepening slump in the world’s third-biggest economy.  Outbound shipments declined 17.5 percent in January from a year earlier and imports fell 43.1 percent. Both numbers were worse than economists’ forecasts.   The $39.1 billion trade surplus, the second biggest on record, may add to international tensions as global leaders warn of the risk of protectionism amid the worst financial crisis since World War II. China’s economic growth is likely to cool to 6.1 percent this quarter, the least since 1999. The slowdown has cost 20 million jobs and increased the risk of falling prices, profits and consumption.

February 12, 2009  United Kingdom.  The UK government's lobby against Canada's subsidies for game companies has been unable to gain any footing with the World Trade Organization. Tiga has long campaigned for tax breaks for UK games developers, similar to those enjoyed in Canada, France and some U.S. states. Although the UK government has been reluctant to explore such breaks, it agreed to look into complaints that the subsidies of other countries constituted an unfair advantage under international trade rules. However, the UK government now admits that no rules on subsidies exist under the WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services and therefore no complaint can be made.

"Just as Australia, Canada, China, France, Singapore, South Korea and some American states help their games industries to grow through extensive tax breaks, so the UK government should back our games industry with a tax break for games production. If you can’t beat them, join them," states Tiga CEO Richard Wilson. "The government stands naked before the games industry, bereft of a credible fiscal policy with which to support the sector," Wilson added, urging the government to introduce a 20 percent tax break into the budget "similar to the EU approved French regime that applies to games that pass a cultural test." Wilson says such a tax break would mean an additional £220 million ($317m) would be invested -- and could create up to 1,600 jobs.  "This measure would cost HM Treasury £150 million ($216m) over five years – a fraction of the recent £100 billion ($144bn) taxpayer bailout of the UK banking system," he concluded.

February 12, 2009  U.S. trade deficit.  The U.S. trade deficit fell to the lowest level in nearly six years in December as the recession continued to depress domestic need for imports and the spread of the global financial crisis slashed demand for U.S. exports, the Commerce Department reported yesterday. The trade deficit shrank to $39.9 billion in December, the fifth consecutive month it has declined, marking the second full year in a row the gap has contracted. The string of smaller trade imbalances represents a reversal of a 16-year trend, as the deficit had increased consistently since 1991, when it was only $31.2 billion.

February 11, 2009  India and China.  India’s move to ban import of Chinese toys may not be compatible with the World Trade Organization (WTO) rules. Trade experts and lawyers report that if China drags India to the WTO, the country may find it difficult to justify the ban. However, Indian toy manufacturers see the ban as an opportunity to reclaim their lost market share. The notification, issued on January 23, said the move had been carried out in “public interest” and would be effective for six months. However, there were no details of the grounds on which the ban was imposed. The ban comes against the backdrop of shrinking market for exports as major economies like the US, Europe and Japan - which account for half the world’s output - are in recession. Countries hit by low exports are creating barriers to protect their domestic companies from competition. WTO members can drag their trade partners to the international trade body if they suspect any unfair trade practice. Indian government sources said the ban was imposed because of health concerns. In 2007, many varieties of Chinese toys were found to carry toxic substances like lead and many international companies had recalled millions of such toys across the globe.  Lawyers specializing in international trade disputes point at Article 20 of General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which defines conditions under which import restrictions can be imposed. These include protection of public morals as well as health and safety concerns. However, the article specifies that such measures cannot be used to discriminate between countries.

February 10, 2009  WTO to monitor "protectionism".   The World Trade Organization will step up monitoring of protectionist trade policies amid rising fears that nations will make the economic crisis worse by retreating from open markets — as they did during the Great Depression. The fear of policy-makers and businessmen is that Washington — and others — may revert to the strategy employed at the beginning of the Great Depression, when the U.S. Smoot-Hawley Act of 1930 raised tariffs on thousands of goods to protect American businesses. The act led to worldwide retaliation and the devastation of international commerce.

World powers after World War II tried to guard against a repeat by setting up the Bretton Woods global financial institutions. President Barack Obama has promised that the U.S. will respect international trade agreements. Other countries are likely to make similar pledges with their stimulus packages or bailouts for key industries such as automobiles. But countries can still resort to some forms of protectionism without breaking any rules. Most nations can legally raise their tariffs somewhat above the level they currently charge on imports. They can also attach extra duties on foreign goods they suspect are being "dumped" at below-market value. In agriculture, countries can even resort to export subsidies, as the European Union recently did for dairy products in a move many of the WTO's 153 members are criticizing but not calling illegal.

February 9, 2009  Open trade.  Leading financial and economic institutions have called for countries to co-operate in order to prevent their economic stimulus packages from harming global trade. The leaders of organizations including the World Trade Organization, International Monetary Fund and World Bank issued a joint statement in Berlin declaring openness to trade and cross-border investment to be “the best preconditions for ensuring that economic momentum is regained on a global scale”.

The International Labor Organization and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development were also party to the statement. The declaration came amid huge concern in Europe about a Buy American clause in the near-$900bn economic stimulus bill, which would have required federal money be spent on goods and services provided by US companies.

The leaders were meeting to agree on common ground ahead of the G20 financial summit in London. Robert Zoellick, World Bank president, stressed the importance that the G20 consider the needs of poor countries, particularly the risk that an economic crisis could become a human crisis in the developing world.

February 6, 2009  Doha.   It is important for the United States under President Barack Obama to set up a new trade team for the Doha round of trade talks to succeed, World Trade Organization chief Pascal Lamy has stated. Speaking to reporters in the German capital, he said he did not know how long it would take for the United States to "get its act together on trade policy," adding it was crucial for the success of the Doha round that the United States was on board. Lamy also said the global trade situation was "pretty terrible."  Asked whether he saw any protectionist moves under way, Lamy said: "There is a bit of that. Nothing dramatic. "But there is a bit of that which we have tracked in a report which I gave to the members of the WTO ten days ago which we will discuss in the WTO next Monday."

February 5, 2009  WTO.  The World Trade Organization's top court has backed the European Union in its challenge of a U.S. method for dealing with unfairly priced imports, confirming a series of previous rulings. The European Union launched the appeal even though it won the original case in October, because the original panel refused to rule on some instances challenged by Brussels. The United States subsequently also appealed. An official with the U.S. Trade Representative's Office said the United States was "highly disappointed" with many points of the ruling, but also noted the panel did not accept all the European Union's claims in the appeal.

The case had attracted attention as an example of a growing rift between the WTO's dispute panels and its Appellate Body over the extent to which zeroing can be permitted under international trade rules. With the economic crisis fueling fears of protectionism that could deepen the world's recession, trade remedies such as anti-dumping measures to tackle cheap imports are coming under added scrutiny by governments and trade lawyers. In a 166-page report, the Appellate Body overturned many reservations of the original dispute panel, and recommended the United States bring the measures into line with trade law. International trade rules allow countries to impose duties on imports that are sold for less than they cost at home, if they are found to damage businesses in the importing country. The anti-dumping duties are based on the difference between the price in the exporting and importing markets. The United States ignores, or treats as zero, examples where the price is actually higher in the United States than in the exporting country. Critics say that artificially inflates the anti-dumping duty, putting up a higher barrier to trade. The present case, launched in October 2006, involves U.S. anti-dumping measures against imports of European ball bearings, steel products, pasta and chemicals. The United States now accepts that zeroing is inadmissible in new anti-dumping investigations, and did not contest EU arguments involving investigations into imports of chemicals from Finland, Netherlands, Spain and Sweden. But it argues that zeroing should be allowed in reviews of its existing anti-dumping measures, and is pushing in the WTO's Doha round to have zeroing explicitly recognized as permissible.

February 4, 2009  "Buy American".  Canada's ambassador to the United States stepped up diplomatic pressure on U.S. senators Monday to restrict Buy American policies, warning they could spark the kind of worldwide trade retaliation that led to the Great Depression. In a letter to Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell, the respective leaders of the Democrats and Republicans in the Senate, Ambassador Michael Wilson asks legislators to refrain from bringing in new laws that would restrict trade, lest they lead to similar actions by other nations. Wilson warns that legislation in Congress that would force officials to direct infrastructure spending to U.S. firms could undermine the United States' ability to dissuade others from also undertaking protectionist measures. “We are concerned about contagion, that is, other countries also following protectionist policies. If Buy American becomes part of the stimulus legislation, the United States will lose the moral authority to pressure others not to introduce protectionist policies,” he writes. “A rush of protectionist actions could create a downward spiral like the world experienced in the 1930s.” The U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation last week that bans all foreign iron and steel from the $820-billion (U.S.) stimulus package. A Senate version of the bill currently under debate would extend that ban to everything bought with taxpayer money that is ultimately devoted to the recovery plan.

The EU has increased pressure as well, requesting that the U.S. reconsider the "buy American" clause in their stimulus package -  the clause seeks to ensure that only US iron, steel and manufactured goods are used in projects funded by the bill.  A European Commission spokesman said it was the "worst possible signal". However, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said President Obama had assured her the US would not follow protectionist policies.   The rescue plan has already been approved by the US House of Representatives and is under discussion in the Senate this week, who could sign it off before the weekend.  The EU spokesman said Europe would launch a complaint with the World Trade Organization (WTO) if the clause remained.

But, President Obama stated, " I want provisions that are going to be a violation of World Trade Organization agreements or in other ways signal protectionism. I think that would be a mistake right now. That is a potential source of trade wars that we can't afford at a time when trade is sinking all across the globe."

February 3, 2009  Global trade.  Global trade growth eased to 4 per cent last year as the economic crisis took a bigger toll than previously forecast on commerce among nations, the World Trade Organization states. That’s less than the 4.5 per cent growth WTO economists predicted last April, when they said strong expansion in emerging markets would fail to offset a slowdown in developed nations this year. Trade grew about 5.5 per cent in 2007, down from 8.5 per cent the year before. Trade was already slowing in the first half of 2008 due to a combination of factors including the credit crunch and rising commodity prices, particularly for food and oil.  In the second half of the year, there was a “sharp turnaround” in the growth of merchandise trade, which “turned negative in November” WTO director-general Pascal Lamy reports.  The World Bank forecasts a 2.1 per cent decline in global export volumes this year, the first drop since 1982. 

February 2, 2009  China.  China has stated that it will extend anti-dumping duties on imports of phenol, a chemical compound used to make some antiseptics, medicines and plastics, from Japan, South Korea, the United States and Taiwan. The duties had been due to expire on February 1 but will now be extended by as much as a year while the Ministry of Commerce investigates whether removing them would damage domestic industry, the ministry said in a brief statement. China has been levying anti-dumping duties on phenol since 2003 because of complaints that low-cost imports were hurting its industry. Importers have been required to deposit between 3 and 144 percent of the value of shipments with the ministry. New anti-dumping investigations rose by 39 percent from a year earlier to 85 in the first half of last year, according to the World Trade Organization. China was by far the most frequent target of such investigations, accounting for 37.

February 2, 2009  Davos.  Global leaders had a simple message for the world on Saturday: Keep trading. If nations instead choose to barricade their economies behind new commercial barriers, they risk making the global economic crisis even worse, leaders said.  Their talks, however, offered no renewed hopes for a long-awaited deal in the Doha round of trade talks that many see as a necessary bulwark against the threat of economic protectionism, which devastated the world during the Great Depression. The meeting did not produce a timeframe for action in the Doha talks, now in their eighth year with no completion in sight. Hundreds of anti-capitalist, anti-globalization protesters in Geneva violently rebutted the free trade argument, lobbing bottles at riot police, who responded with tear gas and water cannons. The Geneva protest — about five hours by train from the gathering of 2,500 business and political leaders in Davos — had been peaceful until police blocked a crowd from entering the city center. At a smaller protest in Davos, police said 120 people marched through the town, and a few lobbed snowballs. Those events went unnoticed in the forum's last full day. Instead, CEOs, company chairmen and politicians turned their attention to the future of free trade, which many said was under threat as countries deal with rising unemployment, financial instability and recessions — real or anticipated.

Meanwhile, trade ministers on Saturday said there was a "sound basis" for agreeing a new global free trade pact this year amid growing fears about protectionism as the economic crisis bites. Ministers from 18 economies met on the sidelines of the Davos forum, saying afterwards that they would push to overcome their differences early this year in the so-called Doha Round of World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations.  Ministers have been struggling to agree a trade deal since talks were launched in Doha in 2001 and regular pledges to make progress and complete the round have come to nothing. World leaders had pledged in a meeting in Washington in November to agree a framework agreement before the end of 2008, but World Trade Organization chief Pascal Lamy called off a mooted December gathering due to a lack of consensus.