About: bilateral trade Archives

China and Africa will be an important engine for economic growth in the next 20 years and Europe should seize the opportunity to engage with them strategically and not see them as a threat, WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy said Wednesday (15 May) in Brussels, where he attended the European Business Summit.

Seven African countries face paying tariffs on their exports to the European Union if they fail to honour trade agreements signed with Brussels in 2007, EURACTIV France reports.

A new study for the Alliance for Affordable Solar Energy (AFASE) says that EU tariffs on solar panels from China could lead to 242,000 European job losses in the next three years.

President Barack Obama on Tuesday (12 February) called for talks on a far-reaching free trade agreement with the European Union, throwing his weight behind a deal that would encompass half the world's economic output.

A dispute over how far to open agricultural markets to imports is holding up a free trade agreement between Canada and the European Union, officials familiar with the negotiations said on Tuesday (5 February).

EU trade officials are to meet their Chinese counterparts in Brussels tomorrow (1 February) in an attempt to resolve a trade spat after China rebuffed attempts by the European Commission to barter legal threats in return for access to the Chinese market.

The high-level working group on growth and jobs, set up at the last EU-US summit in November 2011, will give the go-ahead to launch negotiations for a transatlantic trade agreement, said Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the EU.

The European Union and Singapore agreed terms of a free trade deal on Sunday (16 December), a move that should further open the Asian country's markets for financial services and make it easier for European automakers to export there.

Taiwan-based firms run a substantial amount of China’s economy thanks to their deep business, cultural and linguistic ties with the mainland. This should make Europeans rethink their approach to trade relations with Taiwan, write Patrick Messerlin, Hosuk Lee-Makiyama and Michal Krol.

EU trade ministers overcame resistance from the car industry on Thursday (29 November) and agreed to start negotiations to create a free-trade pact with Japan, Europe's most ambitious step so far in a strategy to tie up deals with the world's biggest economies.

SPECIAL REPORT / Companies on both sides of the Atlantic have urged EU and US policymakers to negotiate a ‘realistic’ trade and investment agreement that not only benefits their economies, but serves as a model for the rest of the world.

SPECIAL REPORT / A European Commission communication to re-launch European industrial policy – to be published next month and seen by EURACTIV – will face diffidence from member states left unconvinced by a string of unfulfilled initiatives and divided over what such a policy should deliver.

There is no stronger motive today to unify Europe than the growing emergence of China, writes Pierre Defraigne.

China is considering price control mechanisms and tightly regulated markets for its emissions trading schemes (ETS) in a bid to avoid the price volatility and scandals that have hit Europe's ETS, as surveys show the country has reached European per-capita emission levels.

Colombia is transitioning from a country torn apart by internal conflicts to a spirited democracy complete with a functioning rule of law, says Günther Verheugen. Europe should encourage this with an EU-Colombia trade agreement, he argues.

The European Commission has hailed an EU trade agreement signed Tuesday (26 June) with Colombia and Peru as an exciting investment opportunity but NGOs and trade unions have expressed concerns over social and human rights record of the Latin American countries.

Cultural barriers – and languages in particular – remain a significant obstacle to trade relations with South Korea and Japan and continue to hinder the development of European businesses there, despite bilateral trade agreements, writes Thierry Fournier.

Tired of seeing European companies blocked from Chinese public tenders, the European Commission is preparing plans later this month that will allow individual EU countries to bar foreign bids from countries that refuse to open up their public procurement markets, EURACTIV can reveal.

While the EU seeks to curb its import dependency on raw materials through better re-use and recycling, the bloc remains a top exporter of all sorts of waste – including paper, plastics and metals.

The European Union and Japan made commitments on Saturday (28 May) to launch "pre-negotiations" in view of signing a free trade agreement (FTA). But they failed to set a precise timeline and maintained opposing views on the automotive sector and other sensitive areas.

A plan to liberalise trade with Pakistan following last year's devastating floods is under fire for its expected impact on the EU's biofuels and textiles industries, especially in crisis-hit Portugal, according to internal documents seen by EURACTIV.

The EU budget must be slashed, according to UK Business Secretary Vince Cable, who warned of a "backlash" across Europe if citizens are hit with cutbacks while Brussels' budget is untouched.

Europe and Japan should establish a new body to strengthen economic relations, according to BusinessEurope, an industry group.