Intellectual property and the issues of biotechnology and public health are rising concerns for stakeholders to the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement negotiations. The 18th round of TPP negotiations took place from 15-25 July in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia.

A stalled Free Trade Agreement between the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and the European Union (EU) is "99 percent complete," according to Bahrain's Minister for Foreign Affairs Shaikh Khalid bin Ahmed bin Mohammed Al Khalifa. Shaikh Khalid made the comment at a press conference following the 23rd session of the Joint Ministerial Council Meeting between the GCC and the EU on June 30, 2013. The two sides committed to free trade negotiations in 1988. However, since talks began in 1990 they have been interrupted several times.

Euro’s decision to curb imports of Chinese solar panels threatens to limit the biggest projects using the technology in the 28-nation bloc while having little impact on the manufacturers accused of dumping their products.

SHANGHAI, July 30 (Xinhua) -- China, the Republic of Korea (ROK) and Japan started their second round of trilateral talks on a free trade agreement (FTA) on Tuesday. The talks, which will end on Friday, will cover the cargo and service trade, rules of origins, customs procedures, trade remedies, intellectual property rights and e-commerce, said Yu Jianhua, a representative for China's international trade negotiation. The three countries have seen increasingly close economic and trade relations and are important partners and markets for each other, said Yu.

When the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiators gather for the nineteenth and potentially final round of talks later this month in Brunei, the ministers to whom they answer may be nearby. According to an article published in the Japan Times on Monday, the government of Brunei has put forward a proposal to bring together ministers from the 12 participating countries in order to continue the push for a 2013 conclusion. 

Pinning hopes on the Bali Ministerial meet in December for further progress of the WTO Doha round trade negotiations, India on Monday warned that if no progress was made on the G-33 proposal of developing countries like India to deal with food security issues, the Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) progress could also stand stalled.

(Reuters) - China has agreed to discuss dropping its inquiry into whether Europe is dumping wine, the EU's trade chief said on Monday, after EU and Chinese officials made a deal to avoid tariffs on solar panels from China. After resolving their biggest trade dispute yet, Beijing and Brussels will tackle accusations that French, Spanish and Italian wine is being exported for sale at below the cost of production, as well as another dispute over exports of polysilicon, a raw material used in solar panels.

The office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) has reported that further strong progress was achieved at the 18th round of Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations, which was held in Malaysia and ended on July 25. It was said that the treaty's negotiators kept their eyes fixed on the goal set by President Obama and the other TPP Leaders of concluding a comprehensive agreement this year, while also welcoming Japan's entry into the negotiations.

Thailand is eager to wrap up a free-trade agreement with the European Union after the bloc began pursuing bilateral deals with many major markets. "The EU has paid a lot of attention to free-trade talks with many countries including China, the US, Japan, Canada and Asean. If Thailand finalises the FTA with the EU, the country could benefit from open trade earlier than other countries," Piramol Charoenpao, director-general of the Trade Negotiations Department, said last week.

New Zealand's Prime Minister John Key pushed for completion of his country's free trade agreement (FTA) with South Korea, during talks in Seoul on July 26 with South Korean President Park Geun-hye. He said that he had "made the President aware of the importance we place on getting an agreement in place so that New Zealand companies can compete on an equal footing in the Korean marketplace with the United States and other countries with which South Korea has concluded FTAs."