100 posts
Mixed progress for ACP-EU trade agreements
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Long-running talks on Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) between some members of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group and the European Union move ahead at a mired pace, despite best efforts on both sides. At the last joint ministerial t...
Malawi reconsiders controversial trade agreement EU
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Malawi has opened negotiations on the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the European Union (EU), which have been stalled since 2002. The new round of negotiations could see the administration of President Joyce Banda sign the free trade agree...
Zimbabwe-EU trade to improve
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European Union head of delegation Aldo Dell’Ariccia says the return of KLM Royal Dutch Airlines into Zimbabwe after 13 years will boost trade between the Southern African country and the Western bloc. Dell’Ariccia told guests at a breakfast meeti...
Fiji pushes Pacific trade agenda with Europe
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Fiji has told Europe’s top trade man: Europe must do more to reach a fair partnership with the Pacific Islands. Attorney-General and Minister for Industry and Trade, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, underscored concerns of Pacific ACP (African, Caribbean, Paci...
EC Publication of revised regulation on the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP)
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On 31 October 2012, the European Commission issued a revised regulation on the GSP for developing countries most in need that will take effect from 1 January 2014, thus giving time for economic operators to adapt to the revised regime. The revised re...
How clean is your house’s international trade record?
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As a western European country, the UK might pride itself in its efforts to lower emissions. And there has been success on this front. Carbon emissions in Great Britain have fallen since 2008, following a steady increase for over 100 years in line wit...
Transatlantic Jobs and Growth initiative: Substantial progress underway
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With the US Presidential election a few days away and too close to call, the issue of Europe has hardly been mentioned in any of the political debates. And yet, the economic partnership between the European Union and the United States has grown remar...
Green trade can deliver significant benefits to Europe and the world
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At the beginning of September, leaders at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), agreed to dramatically cut tariffs on a selection of clean and energy efficient equipment. Custom tariffs will be cut from 35 to 5%. This initiative which is wort...
ACP's "instrumental" role in trade debate
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Director-General Pascal Lamy, at the meeting of ACP Ministers of Trade in Brussels on 24 October 2012, said the Group of African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) members “is one of the more powerful and influential advocacy and negotiating arms in the...
Spotlight on trade agendas in lead up to ACP-EU Joint Trade meeting
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Senior officials and Ministers for Trade from ACP governments convene in Brussels this week to tackle crucial issues regarding trade relations between their countries and the European Union. The series of high level meetings culminates with the annua...
EU trade relations with Israel
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Since I have received a volume of correspondence on the Conformity Assessment and Acceptance of Industrial Products (CAA), specifically on the proposed upgrade to trade relations with Israel, I thought it would be helpful to set out Labour MEPs’ vi...
EU trade negotiations with Japan
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A “scoping exercise” by the European Commission and Japanese government on a possible free trade agreement was concluded on 31 May 2012. The Commission subsequently recommended to the Council that it authorise the opening of negotiation...
EU-South Korea: analysis of trade
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The EU-South Korea Free Trade Agreement (FTA) has been in force since 1 July 2011. One year on, it is timely to look at trade between the EU – the world’s largest economy in terms of GDP – and South Korea – the world’s 13th largest economy.
ACTA-framgångens tusen fäder
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SVT var nere i Bryssel härom veckan, och har lagt ut en artikel och ett reportage på SVT Nyheter (2 min): När jag ser reportaget kommer jag att tänka på det (mer eller mindre autentiska) kinesiska ordspråket “Framgången har tusen fäder,...
Tanzania remains gateway to EAC common market
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The former Minister for East African Cooperation and the current Ambassador to Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and the European Union, Dr Diodorus Kamala, has said that Tanzania remains the Gateway to East African Community Common Market.
CARIFORUM-EU TDC meeting under EPA declared
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As we informed our readers, the CARIFORUM and the EU convened the Second Meeting of the Trade and Development Committee (TDC) under the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago on 27 September. According to a recent...
Free Trade Agreements – Ukraine
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Turkey looks set to be the next Free Trade Agreement negotiated and signed by the current Ukrainian government – quite possibly by the end of 2012. Quite rightly too. If there is a star economic performer in the Black Sea region over the past...
Second TDC meeting to delve into EPA implementation
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Trinidad and Tobago will host the Second Meeting of the Trade and Development Committee (TDC) this week, under the Caribbean Forum of ACP (CARIFORUM)-EU-EPA framework. A preparatory meeting of CARIFORUM officials, also to be held in Trinidad and Toba...
Labour rights in Colombia in the perspective of a Free Trade Agreement with the EU
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The EU’s Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Colombia and Peru, on which the European Parliament is expected to vote in the coming months, is the subject of deep controversy. NGOs from both sides of the Atlantic question whether such an agreement s...
International Copyright Scope and Limits and the TPP Draft
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Megan Geuss has the international copyright draft story for Ars Technica at Leaked: US proposal on copyright's limits. The problem is that major "partners" in these kinds of negotiations tend to represent rightsholders and vested interests. There ar...
Is Multilateralism in Crisis? The WTO Public Forum
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In this brief article Patrick Holden discussed the debates taking place in advance of this years WTO Public Forum.
Nigeria: Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala Declines WTO High Post
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Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria's Finance and Co-ordinating Minister of the Economy is not interested in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) top job. Pascal Lamy will retire soon and there's been speculations that Okonjo-Iweala may seek to r...
Vanuatu: the 157th WTO member
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As the Ambassador of Vanuatu to the EU, HE Roy Mickey Joy, stressed in an interview to the CTA Brussels Weblog, the Pacific country has recently become 157th WTO member. According to the WTO, from the date of accession Vanuatu is ap...
New figures show that 51.4% of UK goods exports are sent outside the EU and we run an EU trade deficit – does that tell us anything?
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New trade figures out today show the UK exports more goods to countries outside the EU than to countries inside EU. But what is the relevance of this or the fact that the UK continues to run a trade deficit with the EU? Key facts: UK goods expor...
China’s solar companies face tough odds in EU investigation
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China’s solar panel manufacturers are facing an up-hill battle in their legal fight against the EU, which last week targeted them as it launched the bloc’s biggest-ever an anti-dumping investigation. The case involves Chinese exports of solar pan...
EU China solar trade dispute
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Dear reader,besides the one big financial event in the eurozone this week, the ECB meeting and the crucial decisions on its future bond buying scheme, there was the rapidly developing trade dispute between the EU on the one hand and China on the othe...
Pippi reveals that CETA is counterfeit ACTA
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Imagine a software which reveals what has been copy-pasted and from where. This software exists, and it is called Pippi Longstrings. And it’s been Beta-tested on a very sexy subject. While the future of ACTA looks dim after the European Parliament...
Sweden to help improve poorest countries’ trading capacity
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According to recent updates by the WTO, Sweden has made a contribution of CHF 4.6 million to the Doha Development Agenda Global Trust Fund (DDAGTF) and CHF 107,000 to the Trade Facilitation Trust Fund. The main aim of these contributions is to...
Lies, damned lies and statistics
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Wednesday, 29 August 2012 There was no break for the Euro myth machine over the summer. Perhaps the terrible weather kept its scribes indoors. Our old friend Allister Heath, editor of City A.M., popped up in the D...
Meet U.S. Navy´s awesome new SMV (made in China): Keeps "our fleet ready"
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"In a rather practical design feature, each of this electric maintenance vehicles is also equipped with a roof-mounted solar panel"(image by US Navy)Meet the U.S. Navy´s awesome new SMV (SlowMoving Vehicle), made in China (chassis)! With a...
The UK should leave the WTO instead of the EU!
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The UK's June trade balance (goods and services) from £ billion -2.9 in 2011 to -4.3 in 2012! Without services, it would be worse! The deficit in goods trade of the UK is greater with the rest of the world than with the EU (June 2012): -5.2 vs -4.9...
Immediate benefits? Ukraine and CIS FTA ratification
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Regular readers of this blog will recall a post I wrote not so long ago relating to the Russian led Customs Union and the Vietnamese accession talks due to begin as early as September this year. Well, a week or so ago, Ukraine did indeed ratify a fre...
Their way or the highway?
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Countries with large trade surplus take pride in their capabilities. They sound like entrepreneurs who think they succeeded on their own. They also sound like the scorpion in the Scorpion and the Frog. NickPthinks on business, EU policy, socio-eco...
Kia takes gold in auto imports, France cries foul
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By Phillip Souta Kia, the South Korean car manufacturer proclaims in its advertising that it has the “power to surprise.” Dramatically living up to that, sales of South Korean cars have surged 24 per cent in the last year. France, perhaps less p...
Fair trade in public procurement in the EU
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A growing proportion of European citizens care more and more about contributing towards sustainable economic and social development in developing countries through their purchasing preferences, notably buying fair trade. This concern of consumers for...
Growing Chinese trade with Africa compensates for EU’s slowdown
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According to the China daily, the expansion of China's trade with Africa in the first half of 2012 has helped compensate for the slowdown in trade with the EU and other regions affected by the economic crisis.
The row over the uniforms and the WTO factor
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My comment re "Made-in-China US Olympic uniforms spark political row" (Reuters): China joined the WTO in December 2001. Is it time the US considers leaving the WTO? The EU? A departure of the US (and the EU?) from the WTO would not mea...
Could the crisis be catalyst for a Japan-EU free trade deal?
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The EU is set to start negotiations with Japan over a free trade deal, which is seen as a 'game-changer' that could have a huge impact on the economies of the two partners, reports Francesco Guarascio...
The EU’s Raw Materials Initiative may be of little benefit to the EU or to the developing countries it intends to help
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The EU’s new Raw Materials Initiative (RMI), aims to increase Europe’s access to raw materials in developing countries, while at the same time increasing development in those countries. Benjamin Laag argues that it remains to be seen whether the...
No slowdown in new trade restrictions
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According to a recent report on trade-related developments, there has been no slowdown in the imposition of new trade restrictions over the past seven months. Since mid-October 2011, 182 new measures that restrict or can potentially restrict or di...
EU Customs proposals bring more woe for patents
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Even with the assistance ofEurope's finest, the EU hasfound it hard to keep fakesout of the single market ... Today, breathlessly reports an excited IPKat, the European Parliament will discuss a report by German Liberal Jürgen Creutzmann on how to...
Einfuhren aus dem Nicht-EU-Ausland
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Die Zollbestimmungen, entsprechend dem Zollkodex der Europäischen Union, erlauben die Einfuhr von Waren aus Drittländern grundsätzlich ohne spezielle Formalitäten. Diese Regelung birgt allerdings eine Vielzahl an Ausnahmen. Dadurch ergeben sich u...
Regulation on export and import of dangerous chemincals
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During the last Council meeting on General Affairs, ministers adopted a regulation concerning the export and import of dangerous chemicals. This regulation replaces a former which implements the Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent P...
EU will not force the ACP to cave in
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The ACP is not willing to yield to EU conditions under the Economic partnership Agreements, the so-called EPAs. The group warned last week that it will not sign until there is a mutually beneficial position that does not threaten regional integr...
INTA Committee gives a hand to ACP
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International Trade (INTA) committee calls on the Commission to give ACP countries two more years for negotiations on their Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) before withdrawing their free access to the EU market.
Towards an alternative trade agenda
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As the current neo-liberal trade model is exacerbating inequality across Europe and the developing world, a significant number of European activists are pushing for a radical alternative to the EU trade agenda. According to the Alternative Trade M...
Sugar funds cuts: damage to Fiji not so sweet
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According to one recent report by PACNEWS, the ACP group believes that the EU withdrawal of sugar funds will damage people working in Fijis sugar industry. In the Pacific region, Fiji is the sole signatory to the sugar protocol and benefits from E...
Pacific-EU EPA needs to “pro-trade”and “pro-development”
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According to the Fijian Attorney General and Minister for Industry & Trade, recent statements attributed to him in an article in the Fiji Times entitled "Fair Agreement" were inaccurate. The article incorrectly quoted the minister stating that...
"Growth through Trade: What an Export Promotion Instrument can do" by Andreas Klasen
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The opening up of trade in a multilateral trading system has provided one of the major pillars for economic growth enjoyed by developed countries in the last century. Although emerging countries were latecomers to international trade, they too have s...
Thursday 21st June: INTA votes on ACTA
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On Thursday, 21st of June, the European Parliament’s committee on International Trade (INTA) will vote on ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. David Martin, (Scottish Labour, S&D group), the committees’ rapporteur on ACTA, recommen...
