South Korea, China and Japan have planned to conclude their drawn-out negotiations on a trilateral free-trade deal in 2015, but an agreement may not be achievable unless it is a “high-level and comprehensive pact,” China’s top negotiator to the talks said Tuesday. 

Egypt has emerged as a mediator in a dispute between World Trade Organisation members and India over last year's trade facilitation agreement signed in Indonesia Egypt says it is working towards providing a compromise deal to save last year's WTO Bali agreement, which has stalled since India opposed the deal on the basis of food security concerns, announced Mounir Fakhry, minister of trade, industry and small and medium enterprises, in a press conference on Tuesday.

The United States is awaiting translation of the ruling from the World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement panel in regards to poultry imports to India.  In 2012, the United States launched a WTO dispute, claiming India placed an unjustified ban of the import of U.S. poultry and live pigs because of an outbreak of a low pathogenic avian influenza in Virginia years early. The ban was put in place even though the United States has not had an outbreak of high pathogen avian influenza since 2004.

India will try to convince China to back its stand on securing an agreement on food security at the World Trade Organisation simultaneously with a trade facilitation pact, when talks resume this month. Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is likely to do so when she meets her Chinese counterpart Gao Hucheng after the Joint Economic Group in that country on Tuesday.

New Zealand's trade minister, Tim Groser, has welcomed the signing of a Protocol to amend the Agreement Establishing the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Area (AANZFTA). "The changes included in the Protocol will make AANZFTA more business-friendly, transparent and flexible," Groser said. Mr Groser and other AANZFTA economic ministers signed the Protocol on August 27, 2014, at a meeting in Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar.

The 21-member Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum has confirmed that work is moving forward on the implementation of its landmark agreement to boost trade in over 50 environmental goods categories. Delegates and experts gathered in Beijing, China as part of a two-week forum that ended on 21 August. The meeting focused on building technical capacity among member economies in order to respect an upcoming deadline on reducing tariffs on green goods.

NAY PYI TAW, Aug. 28 (Xinhua) -- Economic ministers from the 16 participating countries of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) have reiterated their commitment to conclude negotiations by the end of 2015.

India may have avoided a major confrontation with the United States at the World Trade Organization (WTO) with its decision not to impose anti-dumping duties on imported solar photovoltaic modules.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) on Wednesday expressed concern over delay in implementing the World Trade Organization's (WTO) Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) that seeks to smoothen global customs rules, as was agreed during the during the Bali Ministerial last year. Members also agreed to expedite talks on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP).

Real progress in Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations has stalled until Japan and the United States reach some kind of basic trade agreement — which is still elusive even after numerous rounds of talks. The United States has been pressuring Japan to make concessions in key areas such as agriculture. It is well known that current TPP negotiations are running on two separate tracks: the plurilateral track in which all 12 countries are participating and the bilateral track which amounts to a series of bilateral deals being negotiated on the side.