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A EU-Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) summit will beginon Tuesday May 8, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

The summit could lead to a free trade deal between EU and the GCC - which includes Saudi Arabia, Bahrein, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Omand and Qatar.

The two blocs had started to negotiate a free trade agreement in 2002, however they failed to agree on a commons set of rules regarding investments and market access.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) plans to sign a free trade pact with Japan in November. Ong Keng Yong, secretary-general of the ASEAN, said the bloc’s economic ministers and their Japanese counterpart would discuss ways to free trade in goods during talks Friday.

The two sides will spell out the percentage of total trade that will be tariff-free by an agreed date, the amount that will be subject to a gradual tariff reduction, and sensitive items that will be excluded altogether because of domestic concerns, he said.

Ong Keng Yong, secretary-general of ASEAN, said the bloc’s economic ministers and their Japanese counterpart would discuss ways to free trade in goods during talks Friday. […]
Ong said Japan has proposed that 1 percent of its trade with ASEAN be excluded from tariff reductions but didn’t specify the items to be excluded. Tariffs on 88 percent to 92 percent of total trade are expected to be fully cut and the rest to beremoved gradually, he said.
(source)

Disappointed by the failure of the Doha round, the latest round of talks in the World Trade Organization, the Asian countries increasingly are signing bilateral and regional free trade agreements.

According to the Asian Development Bank, 150 bilateral free trade agreements had either been signed or were under negotiation last year in Asia.
And more than 40 trade deals were either signed or negotiated by groupings of more than two countries.  The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, for example, aims to abolish tariffs by 2015 under a regional trade deal, and is negotiating agreements with China, Japan, and South Korea.

The mushrooming of free trade pacts in the past few years is partly a defensive response to regional trading blocs elsewhere in the world, such as the European Union or the North American Free Trade Agreement. (source)

U.S. banks, insurers, pharmaceutical companies and other businesses announced their support for a free-trade agreement with South Korea […] The agreement reached early this month in Seoul would eliminate duties on products such as South Korean autos and apparel and reduce investment barriers for U.S. insurers and banks. South Korea would phase out its tariffs on beef and pork. […]

However, U.S. automakers, farmers and lawmakers said they opposed it and vowed to get it rejected unless it was reworked to address their needs.
(source).

Australian and Japanese officials will meet in Canberra Monday for the first round of negotiations on a bilateral free trade agreement.

A senior Australian trade official Friday said on the government condition of anonymity that the two days of talks would focus on setting a framework for future negotiations.

[…] A joint feasibility study commissioned in April 2005, found a comprehensive agreement could boost Australia’s gross domestic product by 39 billion Australian dollars (US$33 billion) and Japan’s by A$27 billion (US$23 billion) over a 20-year period.
[…] Australia has FTAs in place with the United States, Singapore, Thailand and New Zealand and is in negotiations on an agreement with the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Chile, China and Malaysia.
Japan has signed FTAs with Mexico, Malaysia and Singapore and is in talks with several other nations on similar agreements.
(source)