(Reuters) - The Obama administration is making a big push to get Russia into the World Trade Organization by the end of the year and to persuade Congress to approve permanent normal trade relations with the former Cold War enemy, a top White House official said on Friday. "It's not a gift to Russia. We think it's in our national interest," White House national security official Michael McFaul said in a speech at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

BEIJING, April 15 (Xinhua) -- China will prolong its anti-dumping probe into imports of caprolactam, a widely used synthetic polymer, from the European Union and the United States, for six months, said the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) Friday. The probe then will end on Oct. 22, 2011, half a year later from the previous deadline of April 22, said a statement on the MOC website. The postponement was made because the case was relatively "special" and "complicated," said the statement.

HANOI, April 14 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam and Slovakia have many opportunities to promote cooperation in trade and investment, said Vietnamese State President Nguyen Minh Triet during a reception held here Thursday for the visiting Slovakian Economy Minister Juraj Miskov. Both sides have potentials in many fields for expanding cooperation, so the two governments' policies should be transformed into practical cooperative results, the president said.

The European Union has exuded confidence that negotiations for the proposed free trade agreement between the 27-nation block and India would be concluded by the end of this year. European Union's Ambassador to India Daniele Smadja has said that the negotiations for the proposed Broad-based Trade and Investment Agreement (BTIA) are on track. "What is clear is that there is a will on both sides to finish the negotiations this year. My impression is that they are on track," Smadja told EurActiv, an European website, in an interview.

JAKARTA, April 14 (Xinhua) -- Indonesian finance ministry has imposed an import tariff for rice following the improvement of supply of the commodity from domestic sources, spokesman of the ministry said on Thursday. Previously, the government canceled the import tariff following rising prices of the commodity and chillies prices due to lack of supply impacted by weather phenomenon, which had triggered inflation to a 21-month high of 7.02 percent in January.

For the success of the Doha round it is important that emerging economies like India, China and Brazil open up their market more than what they are proposing right now on the negotiation table, a top US trade official has said. "Doha can only reach this potential if key partners like China, India, and Brazil are willing to recognise their success as exporting powers by agreeing to open their markets to a degree much greater than what is currently on the negotiating table," the US Trade Representative, Ron Kirk, said on Wednesday.

Govt to appeal amid fear that the US and EU may extend it to other products. Exporters of steel and, in turn, the Union ministry of commerce are getting worried at the increased resort by the US of countervailing duty (CVD) to bring down imports from India.

Vietnamese wooden products exporters have already signed contracts worth US$3.4 billion this year, or equivalent to the exports during the whole of last year, according to the Vietnam Timber and Forest Product Association. Most of the deals are for shipments in the second and third quarters, with more orders expected to be received, it said. But the industry is struggling with higher costs of rubber wood, packaging, and labor. At the end of last year the price of rubber wood, the main raw material, rose sharply due to a nearly 50 percent rise in latex prices.

China and Brazil on Tuesday clinched a host of government agreements and economic deals in Beijing to push for closer bilateral ties as Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff paid her first state visit to Beijing. After two-hour-long talks in the Great Hall of People in Beijing, Chinese President Hu Jintao and Rousseff witnessed the signing ceremony of eight cooperative agreements in areas like defense, technology and sports.

Since its accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, China's growth and development has built heavily on its increasing integration into the global economy. Export growth in the three years prior to the 2008 financial crisis was nearly 30 percent. Although its export growth was negative during the crisis, China has since rebounded to pre-crisis rates and it is now the world's second-largest trading country after the United States (ahead of Germany).