Following his meeting with Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Long, the President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso said that a comprehensive Free Trade Agreement between the EU and Singapore will likely be finalized "very soon".

BEIJING, Sept. 8 (Xinhua) -- China's Ministry of Commerce on Thursday declared anti-dumping investigations into certain High-performance Stainless Steel Seamless Tubes from the European Union and Japan. The ministry said in a statement on its website that it will investigate the dumping and the dumping margins by the involved companies and calculate the damage done to the domestic industry. The investigations started on Thursday. September 8, 2011 Source: Xinhua News

World Trade Organization Director-General Pascal Lamy says the WTO is expected to, later this month; revise downwards the prospects for world trade in 2011. At the same time Tuesday, Lamy told an audience in Delhi - the multilateral trading system of the future will have to address a number of global challenges, including - the blurring of the edges between trade policy and others such as exchange rate policies, climate change policies, food security policies or energy policies. Still, the more pressing challenge is to advance the Doha Round.

HANOI, Sept. 7 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam exported 108,000 tonnes of cashew nuts in the first eight months of this year, earning 875 million U.S. dollars, which posted a decline of 12 percent in volume, but an increase of 30 percent in value, year-on-year, reported the Vietnam General Statistics Office (GSO) on Wednesday. According to the Vietnam Cashew Association (Vinacas), the country's main importers were the United States, China, the Netherlands, Australia and the Britain. Despite economic difficulties, demands for nuts, including cashew, in these markets remained high.

The paper analyzes renewable energy feed-in tariff (FIT) programmes in the context of World Trade Organization (WTO) subsidy rules. By examining the functioning of the FIT programmes implemented by the Canadian province of Ontario, Germany and the United Kingdom (UK) the paper explores how current subsidy rules may treat FIT programmes.

The World Trade Organisation (WTO) dispute settlement body last Friday adopted a dispute panel report on anti-dumping measures imposed by the US against frozen freshwater shrimp from Viet Nam and the use of the controversial "zeroing" technique for calculating the extent of the alleged dumping.

While not resolving their continuing differences, South Korea’s ruling Grand National Party (GNP) and the main opposition Democratic Party (DP) have managed to reach an agreement to proceed with the South Korea-United States free trade agreement (KORUS FTA) ratification process at the same pace as the United States Congress.

JAKARTA, Sept. 6 (Xinhua) - Indonesia is considering appealing the World Trade Organization (WTO)'s recent ruling that supported the U.S. ban on imports of clove cigarettes, the Jakarta Post quoted a minister as saying on Tuesday. "We have not taken any position on the ruling and we'll have 60 days to convey our position. We'll study the ruling, such as the scientific evidence regarding whether flavored cigarettes encourage teenagers to smoke," Trade Minister Mari Elka Pangestu told a press conference at her office on Monday.

Admitting the 'deadlock' in the Doha round of trade negotiations, WTO Director General Pascal Lamy Monday said that both the developed and developing countries should now seriously think about how they can continue to advance global trade opening and progress in updating the existing trading rules.

(Reuters) - China will halt production of rare earths at three major mines, state media reported on Tuesday, a move which could tighten supply in China, the top exporter of the valuable minerals. Li Guoqing, the director of the mining management bureau of Ganzhou city in the eastern Jiangxi province, said on Monday that three of eight major rare earth producing counties would stop production by year-end, China's official English-language newspaper said. It is unknown when production will resume, Li said, according to the China Daily.