Archive

The Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA) will bring dubious gain to the local economy while severely limiting government’s policy options to develop domestic industries.

It is contemptible how the Philippine government trades its citizens for export goods that will only push the country to even greater disaster.

For Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the future of the Filipino people has a very cheap price. So cheap that she has opted to sell it to Japan by further opening up the local economy in exchange for the annual deployment of

WTO chief Pascal Lamy says the political will may exist to revive stalled global trade talks, but negotiations can resume only if countries compromise on the main stumbling block of agriculture.

Both notifications assert that these regulations are trade restrictive for countries like the US planning to export GM products to India.

Despite the expected challenges, Seoul will push for certain exemptions over sensitive agricultural products during the upcoming third round of free trade agreement talks with Washington, the Korean government said.

Trade ministers of the developing-country Group-of-20 coalition will meet in Rio de Janeiro September 9 and 10 to finalize a position on how to revive the suspended Doha Development Agenda trade negotiations - a first indication of whether a turnaround in the negotiations is possible.

China would damage its robust economy and hinder its own policy objectives if it embraced economic nationalism, Susan Schwab, the US trade representative, said in Beijing yesterday.

(Bhagirath Lal Das) says the WTO negoiations are likely to resume in September and conclude in time to enable the US fast track authority to approve of the decision before June 2007.

The recently-signed trade and investment framework agreement (TIFA) between the US and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will sooner or later lead to a free trade agreement (FTA), and this will prove disastrous to the vulnerable sectors of the region, according to independent think-tank IBON Foundation.