SEOUL, Sept. 6 (Yonhap) -- South Korea and China have reached an agreement on the modality or basic guidelines for their negotiations on a bilateral free trade agreement (FTA), the Seoul government said Friday. The agreement came at the end of three-day talks that ended Thursday in Beijing, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy.

U.S. President Barack Obama is pledging to complete a new Trans-Pacific trade agreement this year, even as roadblocks remain in forging a 12-nation pact. The American leader met Thursday with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in St. Petersburg, Russia. While most of the headlines from the summit concern Washington's effort to rally international support for a military strike on Syria, the leaders are also discussing economic concerns.

Initiated in 2003, The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations currently encompass 12 Asia-Pacific countries: Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the U.S., and Vietnam. While these parties do have a number of free trade agreements (FTA) among them, significant gains can still be made through the inclusion of disciplines not covered under previous agreements. Covering 8.6% of world trade and almost 40% of global GDP, the TPP is a key piece of the Obama Administration’s rebalance to Asia.

The 12 Pacific Rim countries involved in the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade negotiations are arranging a working group meeting on tariffs from Sept. 20 to 23 in Washington, negotiation sources said Wednesday. The meeting of the market access working group that deals with tariff cuts and eliminations will likely coincide with the meeting of TPP chief negotiators, set to be held in Washington on Sept. 18-21, as the countries seek to facilitate the talks and conclude a deal by the year-end.

Recently, controversy has erupted over the treatment of tobacco in the Trans Pacific Partnership trade negotiations. Writing in the New York Times, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg accuses the Obama administration of "caving" on tobacco. He alleges that Obama "bowed to pressure from the tobacco industry." Along the same lines, Lydia DePillis of the Washington Post's WonkBlog says that "a secretive trade deal could help American tobacco companies hook new smokers." What's going on here?

NANNING, Sept. 4 (Xinhua) -- China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) discussed the making of a road map for industrial cooperation at an ongoing expo in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region on Wednesday. At the China-ASEAN Expo's Roundtable Meeting on Investment Cooperation in Nanning, capital of Guangxi, Chinese and ASEAN officials working in investment exchanged ideas on deepening cooperation in various fields.

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia, Sept. 5 -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday urged the World Trade Organization (WTO) to play a bigger role in safeguarding and consolidating a multilateral trade mechanism. Xi made the call when meeting with Roberto Azevedo, WTO's new director-general, ahead of the Group of 20 summit in the Russian city of St. Petersburg.

The Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) between Indonesia and Pakistan, which was signed in February last year, came into effect from September 1 following the signing of an additional Mutual Recognition Agreement (MRA) in which Indonesia recognized Pakistan as a pest-free area for kinnow.

(VOV) - The US Department of Commerce has decided to impose new anti-dumping taxes on tra (Pangasius) fish fillets imported from Vietnam. Under the DOC’s recent 9th administrative review (POR 9), the Vietnamese fish products imported into the US from August 1, 2011 to July 31, 2012 will be subject to high tax rates. Notably, the rates increased almost double to US$0.42/kg for Vinh Hoan products and US$2.15/kg for Hung Vuong products.

Canada is "playing a constructive and important role" in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations, International Trade Minister Ed Fast has said. Nineteen rounds of TPP talks have now been completed, with the latest, in Brunei, concluding at the weekend. According to Fast, negotiators built on the progress already made. He explained that they focused on goods market access, rules of origin, investment, services, financial services, temporary entry, intellectual property, government procurement, and the environment.