Serbia Moves Closer To WTO With South Korea Bilateral Agreement Serbia signed a trade deal with South Korea today, its latest bilateral accord with a member of the World Trade Organization, which it hopes to join next year.

China on Thursday voiced support for Russia's bid to join the World Trade Organization (WTO). "China is among the first WTO members to conclude the bilateral negotiations with Russia on market entry. We expect Russia to join the WTO as soon as possible," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told a news briefing on Thursday.

GENEVA (Reuters) - The United States is encouraged by China's approach in the run-up to intensified talks on a new global trade deal, the U.S. ambassador to the World Trade Organization said on Wednesday. Now it is waiting to see whether that will be reflected in actual negotiations on the long-stalled Doha round, said Michael Punke, who is also Deputy U.S. Trade Representative.

BRUSSELS, Dec 7 (Reuters) - The European Union formally backed Russia's bid to join the World Trade Organisation on Tuesday, clearing the way for Moscow to join the body in 2011 after 17 years of trying. EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht and Russian Economic Development Minister Elvira Nabiullina signed an agreement on the sidelines of an EU-Russia summit, after the resolution of a tariff dispute that had held up EU approval.

China’s Ministry of Agriculture said it hadn’t held talks with its Argentine counterpart on importing corn from the Latin American nation, Yicai.com reported, citing a press statement from the ministry. A news report saying China agreed to buy 5.5 million metric tons of Argentine corn in 2011 was inaccurate, the ministry said in the statement dated Dec. 3, according to Yicai.com, which didn’t identify the source of the earlier report.

YEREVAN, December 7. /ARKA/. On Tuesday, the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Commission on Government Procurements approved Armenia’s joining the Commission, the press office of Armenian Economy Ministry reports. Varos Simonian, head of an economy ministry department in charge of international economic cooperation, and Karen Brutian, head of a department in the ministry of finance overseeing government procurements, are in Geneva, Switzerland, for the session.

New Delhi, Dec 7 (IANS) A key free trade accord between India and the European Union that remains inconclusive despite protracted negotiations will be finalised by early 2011, an official said Tuesday. The broad-based trade and investment agreement is expected to increase the bilateral trade by about 30 percent, to touch 100 billion euros when it gets operational.

The WTO Secretariat reported that during the period 1 January — 30 June 2010, the number of initiations of new anti-dumping investigations showed a 29% decrease compared with the corresponding period of 2009. The number of new measures applied also decreased during the first semester of 2010 when compared with the first half of 2009.

WASHINGTON—Many U.S. lawmakers and businesses believe that China’s trade and currency policies have become increasingly detrimental to the global free markets. A recently released U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission 2010 Annual Report added additional fuel in the China-U.S. trade spat.