More Trade News in Brief Week 2 (6 – 12 January 2014)

 

* ILO’s  Key Indicators of the Labour Market (KILM)

 

ILO released the latest edition of KILM – an online reference tool offering data and analysis on the world’s labour market – includes information about the dynamics of job losses and job creation in 70 developed and emerging economies.

 

Check the Press Release.

 

Download the Key Indicators of the Labour Market (KILM) – 8th edition.

 

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* World Intellectual Property Indicators – 2013 Edition

 

WIPO published the World Intellectual Property Indicators 2013 which provides a wide range of indicators covering different areas of intellectual property.

 

Download the full report here.

 

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* Uzbekistan Joins CIS Free Trade Zone

 

Uzbekistan has ratified a treaty which makes Uzbekistan the ninth member of the free trade area of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

 

Aside from Uzbekistan, the free trade agreement (FTA) includes Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, and Tajikistan. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have signed but not yet ratified the agreement.

 

Please find more here.

 

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Armenia Choose Customs Union

 

Armenia will join to the Customs Union led by Russia and block its chances of signing an agreement with the European Union.

 

 The EU respects the decision on joining the Customs but ‘two systems are incompatible” . Russia considers it a diplomatic victory.

 

Please follow the link for more.

 

More Trade News in Brief – Week 49 (3 – 9 December 2012)

* U.S. Closer to Starts FTA Negotiations with Russia

 

The U.S. Senate has voted an historic decision: U.S. will start negotiation on a trade agreement with Russian Federation.

 

Kindly follow the link for more.

 

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* Russia Promotes Glonass through CIS

 

Russia insists on the members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) to join Glonass, Russia’s global positioning system.

 

Check for more here.

 

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* Guatemala Signs Convention on Tax Transparency

 

Guatemala  signs the OECD’s Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters.

 

Please find more here.

 

 

EU’s New Scheme for GSP Tariffs

 

The European Union (EU) amended its scheme of Generalized Tariff Preferences (GSP) for developing countries.

 

The EU GSP grants trade preferences for developing countries’ exports to the EU will be removed for EU imports from countries on the World Bank’s higher or upper middle per capita income list (including Russia, Brazil, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Qatar).

 

More here.

 

Brazil Signing Currency Swap Agreements with All BRICS

 

Brazil and China have signed a Currency Swap Agreement in order to pay for trade transactions in local currencies (the real and the yuan or renminbi).

 

Furthermore, Brazil revealed that similar currency swap agreements were under study with all the members of the BRICS group of nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa).

 

On the other side, China have signed similar agreements with Australia, Hong Kong and Japan.

 

More Trade News in Brief – Week 25 (11–17 June 2012)

* South Africa-Seychelles DTA Protocol Comes Into Effect

 

The double taxation agreement (DTA) between South Africa and the Seychelles has been ratified and went into effect on May 15, 2012.

 

More here.

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* US To Establish Normal Trade With Russia

 

13 June 2012, Washington

 

United States establish permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) with Russia and repeal the 1974 Jackson-Vanik amendment.

 

For further details, please check here.

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* IFRS’s 2011 Annual Report Published

 

12 June 2012

 

The International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) Foundation published the complete 2011 Annual Report.

The Annual Report, divided in three sections Trustees of the IFRS Foundation, Standard-setting activities, and Financials is available here.

 

 

EU-Russia Summit

3-4 June2012, St Petersburg

 

On the EU-Russia Summit there have been discussed such subjects and issues as:

–          Perspectives for EU-Russia relations (a growing economic relationship, citizens’ mobility, financial cooperation)

–          The EU-Russia new agreement

–          Regional and international issues, including developments in Syria, the Middle East and Iran

 

For further information see IP/12/554 and MEMO/12/401.

EU-Russia Agreements

30 May 2012

 

The European Union (EU) endorsed four agreements with Russia that give the EU exclusive trading benefits in four sectors — Russian wood exports, trade in car parts, duties on raw materials and the services market.

 

More here.

The European Union and the BRIC Countries Statistics

31 May 2012

 

The four BRIC Countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China) and  Eurostat (the statistical office of the EU) releases the publication “The European Union and the BRIC Countries”.

 

The publication contains data on demography, economy, health, education, labour market, trade in goods, agriculture, energy and environment, transport and communication as well as science and technology.

 

For further information please refer to EU’s website.

 

More Trade News in Brief – Week 21 (14-20 May 2012)

* CIS Summit 2012

 

 15 May 2012, Moscow

 

Countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) reaffirm their commitment to tied their relations and to considered economic and trade cooperation a priority.

 

On 15^th May, the delegations of the CIS’s members discussed the ratification of the agreement on a free trade zone within the Commonwealth of Independent States.

 

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* Informal Talks on Information Technology Agreement (ITA)

 

15 May 2012-05-18

 

Under the WTO’s organization, several countries have announced their intention to start informal bilateral and plurilateral consultations on what products to add to the Information Technology Agreement (ITA).

 

More here.

 

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* South Africa – CPI & PPI to be Reviewed

 

 16 May 2012, Pretoria

 

The Government announced that the methods used to calculate the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and the Producer Price Index (PPI) are to be reviewed. More here.

 

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* EU Demands Accurate Information

 

 European Parliament has emitted a resolution calling for accurate information on customs duty and value-added tax (VAT) evasion in member states.

The aim argue was that the EU Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) is unable to recover misused money from member states or even to provide accurate data related to EU funds.

 

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* The 5^th Round Negotiation between China & Switzerland on FTA

 

16 May 2012, Beijing

 

On the last round negotiations, 8-10  May en Beijing, the two parts exchanged views on issues as: goods trade tariff reductions, trade in services, rules of origin, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, technical barriers to trade, intellectual property rights, competition policies and trade dispute remedies.

 

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* G8 Summit – “Acting Together”

 

This year’s G8 Summit, under the motto “Acting Together”, will take place on 18-19 May 2012 in Camp David.

 

More: EU & U.S. Department of State.