(Reuters) - The United States and the European Union took a step on Monday toward launching bilateral trade talks to help create jobs on both sides of the Atlantic by capitalizing on already strong economic ties. "We must intensify our efforts to realize the untapped potential of transatlantic economic co-operation to generate new opportunities for jobs and growth," the two sides said in a joint statement after a White House meeting between President Barack Obama, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and EU Council President Herman Van Rompuy.

Despite the trend of the country's currency value declining against U.S. dollars, a condition that favors export increase, Indonesia is experiencing export drop in the last few months due to the slowing international export demand.

Foreign supermarkets wanting to set up shop in India will have to source 30 percent of their produce from local, small industries, a government statement said on Monday, appearing to change the rule within days of announcing a supermarket policy. The government on Thursday approved 51 percent foreign direct investment (FDI) in supermarkets, paving the way for firms such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc, Tesco and Carrefour to enter one of the world's largest untapped markets.

Colombia and Venezuela Monday signed a new trade deal, among other agreements, during an official visit by Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos. After extensive talks at the Miraflores Palace, seat of the Venezuelan government, the two sides inked 11 deals, including a framework agreement that sets new regulations for the bilateral trade that is worth 7 billion U.S. dollars annually. The deal carried much importance for Venezuela, which withdrew from the Andean Community of Nations (CAN) trade pact earlier this year, of which Colombia is a member.

It's Saturday night at a popular theater in downtown Beijing, and Chinese youngsters are lining up to grab tickets for the U.S. movie "Rise of the Planet of Apes." Liu Xing, a 26-year-old sales manager at a home appliance store in Beijing, said he has come to see the movie because of his growing interest in U.S.-made films and TV drama in recent years. He said the special techniques, good storytelling and dynamic pictures of U.S. action movies are highly attractive to him.

Southeast Asian policy makers looking north to the Asian mainland and east across the Pacific see two major assets to their region: China’s biggest-in-the-world economy and America’s best-in-the-world military. Of course, America is still important to Southeast Asia’s economy: the US and China each imported 10.1 per cent of the total value of ASEAN’s exports in 2009; and accounted for almost identical shares of FDI inflows into ASEAN: 10.8 per cent and 10.4 per cent respectively.

The United States remained the largest trading partner of the European Union (EU) for both goods and services at the end of the first half of 2011, the EU's statistics authorities said Friday. The 27 nations in the EU held a goods trade surplus of 35 billion euros (about 46 billion U.S. dollars) with the United States in the first six months this year, Eurostat said in a statement on its website, three days before the EU-U.S. summit to be held in Washington.

Seoul and Beijing hope to start bilateral free trade talks in January. Kim Tae-hyo, the presidential secretary for national security strategy, on Thursday said he would fly to Beijing in December to meet Yu Jianhua, the Chinese assistant minister of commerce, to discuss the bilateral FTA. But he added the Korean government has taken "no final position on the matter yet."

Rules stipulating that foreign supermarkets will have to source 30 percent of produce from smaller industries cannot be restricted to the Indian market, as this would violate World Trade Organisation guidelines, a senior official said. "It would violate WTO guidelines," Industry Secretary P.K. Chaudhary told Reuters on Friday. The policy came with a condition to source from smaller industries as a way of spreading the benefits of the policy change to Indian firms, but New Delhi cannot by law mandate that the sourcing comes from Indian companies, he said.

Finnish paper mills will get a rare boost from lower costs once Russia enters the World Trade Organisation and cuts its export duties on raw wood, the Finnish business lobby said. The Finnish paper industry, led by forest groups like Stora Enso, UPM-Kymmene and Metsaliitto, had its problems exacerbated as Russia hiked its wood tariffs a few years ago, seeking to lure investment from foreign paper companies on to its soil.