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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)

Japan and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) agreed on Wednesday to work together to reach a free trade agreement which would liberalize more than 90 percent of bilateral trade by value.

The prospective free trade agreement, which will be Japan’s first such deal with a regional bloc, is expected to be signed early next month, when economic and trade affairs ministers from Japan and ASEAN members meet in Brunei, Japanese officials were quoted as saying. (Source)

After signing a free trade pact with the United States, South Korea is to start talks with the European Union on forging a free trade agreement.

“The two sides are now taking their final steps … and I think talks will begin during the first 10 days of next month,” Kim Han-Soo, head of the free trade bureau at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, told a radio program.

Kim said a deal with the EU may be easier since both sides are likely to propose “many exceptions” in agricultural goods. Seoul managed to exclude its politically sensitive rice crop from the US deal.
(Source).

Industry lobbies in U.S. are working towards activist’ agenda to eventually lead up to a free trade agreement between US and India, potentially the largest ever such deal.

The US India Business Council is working out plans to prepare and execute a roadmap to create a US-India free trade agreement. […] As a first step, the council has invited a phalanx of high-end Washington-based consultants, to create the research, prepare and define, and then execute the roadmap to chart a logical progression towards deeper, more robust US-India trade and investment climate.[…] Trade expert professionals are being solicited to join the initiative… (Source).

Even without offering it the prospect of full membership, European Union is offering Ukraine to negotiate a free trade pact, in the effort to build closer political and economic ties with this country […]

Negotiations on a free trade pact as part of a broad so-called enhanced agreement between Brussels and Kyiv is conditional on Ukraine joining the World Trade Organization.
The enhanced agreement does not offer the prospect of future EU membership. […]
Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych said:
“A free trade area established after Ukraine’s accession to the WTO; this is the nearest task that we should implement”. Read more…

Thailand’s cabinet has given its nod for a free trade pact with Japan which large Thai industries expect will help boost exports by 30 percent. […]

The spokesman also rejected rumors that the agreement is a trade off for easier access to Japanese government loans for three planned sky train extensions in Bangkok’s urban areas, the report said.

[…] Thai industries officials said benefits from the agreement will include an anticipated 20 percent increase in exports of frozen seafood, while shoe exporters, who are yet to gain a foothold in the Japanese market, will benefit from import duty cuts of 20 percent annually for five years after which there will be no duty.
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