Brazil and its most important trading partner, China, have agreed to key new bilateral trade deals, expected to generate USD1.5bn in business and lower barriers to entry to the Chinese market for higher added-value products from Brazil.

Representatives of leading international businesses in the UK have published a letter expressing their concerns about the "precarious state" of the Doha Round Talks, eliciting a strong response from Business Secretary Vince Cable, who has agreed that 2011 is a "make or break year".

With WTO rulings on illegal subsidies damning airplane manufacturers on both sides of the Atlantic, the Obama Administration has finally come round to doing what aviation sector specialists have long predicted - open doors to negotiating a settlement of the long and costly war of attrition waged by manufacturers Boeing and Airbus and their respective governments.

SHANGHAI — As the United States and Europe struggle to get their economies rolling again, China is having the opposite problem: figuring out how to keep its revved-up growth engine from generating runaway inflation. The latest sign that things were moving too fast came on Sunday, when China’s central bank ordered the biggest banks to set aside more cash reserves.

Consumers in India and the European Union can hope for mutual imports of goods and services at significantly lower duties, as the two sides have intensified talks to reach a free trade agreement within this year. In a meeting with Ireland Minister for Enterprise, Jobs and Innovation Richard Bruton Ireland here, Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma said both EU and India are "committed to a balanced and ambitious agreement" within this year.

The bilateral trade between India and Japan would be hit in the first quarter of the current fiscal due to massive destruction caused by an earthquake and tsunami that hit the Land of the Rising Sun, last month. "The real impact would be seen in April-June this fiscal on account of less demand owing to earthquake and tsunami in Japan," Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) Director General Ajay Sahai said.

VNEconomyNews.com - Vietnam will raise taxes on some imported commodities in order to curb inflation. The Ministry of Finance plans to raise import duty on some commodities from around 5-10 percent. These commodities are not essential import items. Duty on items like printing machines will rise by 5 % from 0%, tobacco will rise to 50 % and band magnetic for making films will rise to 15% from 10%.

SEOUL (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Sunday the Obama administration was committed to passing a long-delayed free trade agreement with South Korea, and that the pact was ready for review by Congress. "I want to state as strongly as I can how committed the Obama Administration is to passing the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement this year," she told a gathering of business leaders in Seoul during a whirlwind trip through South Korea and Japan. April 16th, 2011 Source: Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Nearly a decade worth of work to reach a world trade deal is on the verge of "failure," World Trade Organization Director General Pascal Lamy said on Saturday in a plea for countries to rise above their own narrow interests for the good of the global economy. "The WTO system is in grave risk of not being able to conclude a round started almost 10 years ago," Lamy told members of the International Monetary Fund just a few months after Group of 20 leaders urged negotiators to strike a deal by the end of this year in the long-running talks.

BOAO, Hainan, April 16 (Xinhua) -- China said Saturday that it hoped to see equal opening-up within the World Trade Organization. "Before China further opens up some sectors, we hope to get in return equal opening-up within the WTO, and some developed countries in particular can open corresponding sectors," said Chen Deming, China's commerce minister, at the Boao Forum for Asia annual meeting running from April 14 to 16 in the southern island province of Hainan. "Such opening-up should be established in mutual-benefit and win-win basis," Chen said.