G20 leaders pledge quick action on Doha round
World leaders on Friday pledged quick action to conclude the long-running Doha world trade talks, instructing their top trade officials to meet by early 2010 to begin the final push for a deal.
“We have agreed to work for an early conclusion of the Doha round of trade negotiation”, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told reporters at the end of the Group of 20 (G20) summit on Friday.More>>
India keen on signing preferential trade agreement with SACU
Union Minister for Commerce and Industry Anand Sharma said on Saturday, following the unveiling of various incentives to exporters who seek to explore new markets and destinations for their products, that India’s presence in and exports to African nations are causing concern to a number of international players, particularly in view of India’s growing share of generics.More>>
Africa sets terms for granting EU full market access
Africa is asking its team of trade negotiators working on the Economic Partnership Agreement to focus on economic development before deciding on opening up markets to the European Union.
Mr Erastus Mwencha, the deputy head of African Union Commission, says the continent should not be tied to timelines on the deal that envisages full access to African markets by 2025.More>>
Nauru leads the charge on EPAs
The stalled negotiations on the EU-inspired Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the Forum Island Countries finally resumed in Brussels. This is after almost exactly one year to the day after the two sides last met in September 2008. And leading the charge for the Pacific Island Countries in the opening round was Nauru’s Secretary for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Robert Sisilo.More>>
G20 must now “walk the talk” on Doha — Lamy
Director-General Pascal Lamy, in his keynote address to the WTO Public Forum on 28 September 2009, said the G20 leaders at their Pittsburgh Summit agreed that “their negotiators now embark on the work programmes that we have established for the next three months, and that they then assess our collective ability to achieve our 2010 target”. He also said that the positive results of the Geneva referendum yesterday on the extension of the WTO headquarters “will encourage us to extend our outreach to you even further”.More>>
World’s poorest countries discuss WTO accession
Some of the world’s poorest countries began a three-day meeting in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh on Monday to discuss how to speed up entry into the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Trade representatives from 12 of the least developed countries in Africa and Asia met officials from the WTO, World Bank, European Commission and United Nations agencies to discuss accession to the organisation.More>>
G-20 Backs Sustained Crisis Response, Shift in IMF Representation
Leaders of the Group of Twenty (G-20) industrialized and emerging market economies at a summit in Pittsburgh pledged to sustain the strong policy response to counter the global economic crisis and provided political support for a shift in country representation at the IMF of at least 5 percent toward dynamic emerging market and developing countries.More>>