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SEOUL, July 12 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's import of pork and beef surged in the first half of this year as the spread of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) drove millions of livestock to be culled, the animal quarantine agency said Tuesday. South Korea imported 219,681 tons of pork in the first six months of this year, up 120 percent from a year earlier, according to the Animal, Plant and Fisheries Quarantine and Inspection Agency. Beef import amounted to 187,874 tons in the first half, up 29 percent over the same period last year, according to the agency.

Yonhap/Chief trade officials from Korea and Colombia agreed to closely cooperate for an early conclusion of their free trade negotiations, Seoul’s trade ministry said yesterday. During a meeting earlier in the day, Korean Trade Minister Kim Jong-hoon and his Colombian counterpart, Sergio Diaz-Granados, shared the view that a bilateral free trade pact will serve as an important tool to boost bilateral relations, according to the ministry.

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Oil dropped on Wednesday, after a surprise gain in U.S. crude inventories and the downgrade of Ireland's credit rating to junk status reinforced views of a well-supplied market amid a deteriorating demand outlook. Brent for August fell 51 cents to $117.24 a barrel at 0228 GMT, while U.S. crude fell 48 cents to $96.95.

Riverina Citrus Chairman Frank Battistel has expressed concern that Australia has sided with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in seeking to overturn the United States’ 2009 Country of Origin Labeling Law (COOL), which was designed to inform and educate consumers about where their food and produce come from.  “Countries are claiming that the U.S. law to inform consumers is somehow a ‘barrier to trade’ which is a strange argument because for producers in Australia, this is what we use to market our fruit into our export markets,” Mr Battistel said. 

WASHINGTON (Yonhap) — A senior U.S. senator on Monday proposed a joint "mock conference" by the Senate and the House of Representatives to help resolve a deadlock over trade deals with South Korea, Colombia and Panama. President Barack Obama’s push for the ratification of the free trade agreements (FTAs) has been complicated, as he has sought to link it with a controversial labor assistance program.

MOSCOW, July 11 (Xinhua) -- Russia's chief sanitary inspector said Monday that Russia has lifted the ban on vegetable imports from the Czech Republic and Greece. "The import of vegetable products from the Czech Republic and Greece to Russia has been permitted since July 11 under certificates which guarantee their safety," Gennady Onishchenko said.

GENEVA — World Trade Organization judges on Monday ruled that the United States is violating global trade rules in using its controversial "zeroing" method to impose anti-dumping tariffs on shrimp from Vietnam. The decision by a three-member panel was the latest of a series in which zeroing — a framework for calculating duties on goods sold at less than their price on the exporter's home market — has been found illegal under WTO agreements.

PTI/NEW DELHI: The European Union has informed the WTO that it is pressing for inclusion of strong IPR regime in the free trade agreement under negotiations with India even as the Commerce Ministry has maintained that New Delhi will not yield to the EU on this issue. The 27-nation bloc gave this input to the World Trade Organization (WTO) which has recently completed a Trade Policy Review of the EU.

The signing of a Vietnam-EU Free Trade Agreement (FTA) will further promote bilateral ties and increase investment opportunities for both sides. With exports to the EU accounting for 16 percent of Vietnam’s GDP (US$14.9 billion), the EU is one of the most important trade partners of Vietnam. Mutual interests