The Trade Negotiations Department is seeking a clear policy on whether the country will pursue a free trade agreement with the European Union. Thailand and the EU started negotiating a framework but have not officially launched FTA talks. Singapore and Malaysia have almost concluded their respective negotiations with the EU while Vietnam and the Philippines are working on plans, according to the department’s director-general, Srirat Rastpana.

Canada’s Minister of International Trade and Minister for the Asia-Pacific Gateway has been explaining the government’s intention to forge ahead with an ambitious job-creating, pro-trade plan, which includes the conclusion of a free trade agreement (FTA) with the European Union (EU).

Brazil is set to propose an “exchange rate anti-dumping” measure to the World Trade Organization that would allow countries to retaliate against trading partners that undertake competitive devaluations of their currencies. Brazil’s Geneva office is working on the plan, which would mark an escalation of what Latin America’s largest economy has dubbed the “currency war,” a battle against what it sees as the use of loose monetary policies by reserve-currency issuers such as the U.S. to boost their exports.

SANTIAGO, Sept. 19 (Xinhua) -- China and other Asian economies have become the dominant market for Chilean exports, which are rising over recent years, a local newspaper reported Monday. While China has become by far the largest consumer of Chile's exports to the east Asian market, other Asian economies including South Korea and Malaysia have also taken on growing importance, the Chilean newspaper El Mercurio said in a special report.

The World Trade Organisation (WTO) has announced the publication of its annual World Trade Report for 2011, focusing on the role that Preferential Trade Agreements play in the development of the multilateral trading system. With the growing number of preferential trade agreements being negotiated as a means of exiting the global downturn, the 256-page World Trade Report 2011 broadly examines why PTAs are established, their effects, and the contents of the agreements themselves. In-depth consideration is also given to the interaction of PTAs and the multilateral trading system.

TAIPEI (Kyodo) — A free trade agreement between Taiwan and the United States is not realistic at the moment as there remain many barriers, a high-level U.S. official said Wednesday. Christopher Kavanagh, spokesman of the American Institute in Taiwan, Washington’s de facto embassy in lieu of formal diplomatic ties with Taipei, told Kyodo News the most important of those barriers is that the American president currently lacks trade promotion authority to fast-track FTAs through the U.S. Congress.

At a summit meeting in Seoul between South Korea’s President, Lee Myung-bak, and Colombia’s President, Juan Manuel Santos Calderon, it was agreed that the two sides would make an effort to conclude the proposed South Korea-Colombia free trade agreement (FTA) by the end of this year. It is likely that the two men also discussed their countries’ respective pending FTAs with the United States, and the continued delays being experienced in the latter’s ratification process.

MOSCOW, Sept. 16 (Xinhua) -- Chances for Russia to join the World Trade Organization (WTO) by the end of this year are very low, said Russian Economic Development Minister Elvira Nabiullina on Friday. Russia was unlikely to finish the negotiations on WTO accession this year and the talks could still take years, the minister told reporters at the 10th International Investment Forum in Sochi, south Russia.

Sept. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Negotiators seeking a trade accord among nine Pacific nations will try to resolve the most sensitive issues over the next two months after progress this week on less divisive matters, a U.S. trade official said.

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 16 (Bernama) — The next round of negotiations on a free trade agreement (FTA) between Malaysia and the European Union (EU) is expected to take place next month. The discussion was getting into specific terms, Deputy International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Mukhriz Mahathir told reporters here today. He was replying to a question whether the talks had reached advanced stages or whether it was still in general terms. Earlier, he introduced the chairman and new members of the Board of Trustees of the SIFE Malaysia Foundation.