BRUSSELS—The European Commission hopes to start talks in the first half of next year on a comprehensive partnership agreement between the United States and the European Union, including a U.S.-EU free trade pact, according to a senior official of the commission. The commission plans to present the proposal to EU member countries, the official said Monday. If it goes forward, the EU and the United States will take the first step toward creating a single free trade zone that would account for 50 percent of the world’s gross domestic product.

The Commerce Department issued its final ruling Wednesday in a long-simmering trade dispute with China, imposing tariffs ranging from about 24 to nearly 36 percent on most solar panels imported from the country. The penalties are somewhat lower than those announced by the department earlier this year, when the government determined that Chinese companies were benefiting from unfair government subsidies and were selling their products in the United States below the cost of production, a practice known as dumping.

Election years create sharp partisan divides in Washington, but there is surprising agreement between our political parties on one way to get America’s economy moving again. Both sides agree that the U.S. must remain a leader in innovation.

Finally and formally, Canada has been invited to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership talks. We are arriving just as things get interesting. The talks are troubled. They could collapse. Even if they don’t collapse, the final agreement could be so riddled with exemptions that the deal essentially becomes meaningless. (Canadian dairy and poultry farmers, who are hoping to be granted one of those exemptions, would celebrate such an outcome.)

KOLKATA, India, Oct. 10 (Xinhua) -- The bilateral trade between India and Myanmar is expected to more than double by 2015. According to U Kyaw Swe Tint, Consul General of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, the trade is likely to grow from 1.28 billion U.S. dollars in 2010-11 to 3 billion U.S. dollars in 2014- 15. Agriculture, health, education, mineral resources and pharmaceuticals could be key areas of co-operation to enhance trade between the two nations.

Oct 10 (Reuters) - The European Union said on Wednesday it had reduced the duties imposed on screws and bolts from China after the World Trade Organisation found flaws in the way they were initially calculated. The EU imposed tariffs in 2009 ranging from 26.5 percent to 85 percent, affecting up to 200 Chinese companies selling components widely used for cars, white goods and machinery in the EU. The imports were worth some 575 million euros ($742 million) in 2007.

Oct 9 (Reuters) - Seeking to reduce its reliance on the sluggish U.S. market, Canada has formally joined 10 other nations in talks on creating an Asia Pacific free trade agreement, the government said on Tuesday. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations are designed to produce a free-trade zone with a combined population of 658 million people and a gross domestic product of C$20.5 trillion ($20.9 trillion), according to Canadian data.

Protectionism is rearing its ugly head in many countries struggling to create jobs for theirpeople, boost business and get fresh capital. But World Trade Organization director-general Pascal Lamy thinks protectionism's ill-effectshave been greatly exaggerated - for now.

MEXICO CITY – Mexico officially became the 10th member of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact on Monday. “This important achievement in trade policy … has been the result of an intense effort, which began in November 2011 when Mexico expressed its interest in being part of this agreement,” said the Economy Secretariat in a statement.

The US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) has become a topic of major controversy in Japan and China over the last two years. Chinese commentators have warned that it is a policy of economic encirclement by the US and allies, while the Japanese public has fretted that joining the TPP will amount to an Americanization of their economy.  In the US, however, there is virtually no public debate at all over the TPP, and only specialists in trade and Asian international relations know what the letters stand for.