(Reuters) - European Union plans to charge airlines for carbon emissions are "discriminatory" and violate global laws, a group of 26 countries including the United States and China said in a joint declaration released by the Indian government on Friday.

BEIJING, Oct. 2 (Xinhua) -- China should boost imports to balance trade as the country has emerged as a major global importer, a senior official said in a forum on imports held in Shanghai. The time has come for the government to attach equal importance to imports and exports, said Zhong Shan, vice minister of commerce. China's imports have boomed since the country entered the World Trade Organization, and have contributed to the country's steady and rapid economic growth, Zhong said.

Republicans from the United States Senate, including Senate Leader Mitch McConnell and its Finance Committee Ranking Member Orrin Hatch, have sent a letter to President Obama urging him to submit the pending free trade agreements (FTAs) with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea to Congress for a vote.

Indonesia failed to prove that a U.S. ban on clove cigarettes, designed to prevent teenagers from starting to smoke, is unnecessary, a panel of World Trade Organization judges said. “The panel found that the ban is inconsistent with the national-treatment obligation because it accords clove cigarettes less favorable treatment than that accorded to menthol-flavored cigarettes,” WTO judges in Geneva said in their report yesterday. “However, the panel rejected Indonesia's second main claim, which was that the ban is unnecessary.”

Slow progress in the WTO Doha Round trade talks has seen China and India have focussing on free trade agreements (FTAs) as a vehicle of trade strategy and economic diplomacy. By mid-2011, the two Asian giants were among Asia’s leaders in FTA activity with 11 each in effect in both China and India. The number of FTAs under negotiation and proposed suggested that such activity will rise in the future, as China has another 13 agreements in the pipeline and India another 20. China has FTAs with ASEAN, Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, Pakistan, New Zealand, Chile and Peru, among others.

Vietnam’s export rice price may increase thanks to the possibility that Thailand’s customers will switch to buy Vietnamese rice. According to data compiled by Bloomberg, 100% B grain rice of Thailand is offered at $627 per tonne (FOB price), higher than $619 per tonne in previous week. This type of rice has ever reached 3-year high of $629 per tonne on September 7. Thai 25% broken grain rice this week reached $559 per tonne, up $5 per tonne from previous week.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama may send to Congress as early as Monday three long-stalled free trade agreements with South Korea, Panama and Colombia, a senior administration official said Saturday. The agreements have been awaiting congressional approval for more than four years. Together, the three trade agreements are expected to boost exports by about $13 billion a year, which the administration estimates will help create tens of thousands of new jobs.

ANKARA, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- Turkey's exports in August saw a year-on-year increase of 32.2 percent to reach 11.2 billion U.S. dollars, Turkish Anatolia news agency quoted official statistics as saying on Friday. Meanwhile, Turkey's imports stood at 19.4 billion dollars, up 26.3 percent compared with the same period last year, according to the Anatolia report. TurkStat, the country's statistical authority, said Turkey's foreign trade deficit hit 8.2 billion dollars in August, 19.1 percent higher than the same period of last year.

(Reuters) - Russia has threatened to ignore a Georgian veto on its entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO), Georgia's ambassador in Geneva said on Friday, in an unprecedented move that would challenge the way the WTO works. Although the WTO rules say decisions can be reached by a two-thirds majority, in practice that has never happened and so far all decisions have been unanimous.

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 30 (Bernama) — The fifth round of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiations between the European Union (EU) and Malaysia will be held in mid-October in Brussels, Belgium. "The fifth round held within a year shows a very steady rhythm of meetings. We are making very good progress," Ambassador, Head of the EU Delegation to Malaysia, Vincent Piket told reporters here today. He said there would be difficult discussions but commitment from both sides, will ensure reasonable and forward looking solutions.