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Bloc will seek free trade pacts with Asian countries to spur growth

BRUSSELS, Belgium – 10/09/06 – The European Union (EU) is reportedly seeking a series of free trade agreements with fast-growing Asian countries as part of a radical overhaul of its trade policy.

The bloc wants its strategy to “focus more closely on boosting European competitiveness by improving access to expanding, lucrative markets.”

The 25-member EU will also consult on reforms to punitive trade protection measures such as anti-dumping sanctions with policymakers worried that Europe is falling behind its major competitors, say recent press reports.

The robust performance of the US economy and the growth of China and India have thrown into sharp relief Europe's patchy economic record of recent years.

According to reports, the European Commission – the EU’s governing body – plans to put improved competitiveness and job creation at the heart of its trade policy, which has been criticized in the past for being “too inward-looking.”

Brussels said its new strategy would strike a balance between helping to develop new markets, ensuring fair competition for European firms abroad and ensuring open access to its own markets.

"A changing global economy needs a new trade policy," said EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson. "An open market is not just a lowered tariff. It is a market in which European companies get a fair deal, with freedom to compete and legal protection when they do."

Brussels is to pursue a series of bilateral trade agreements with countries offering the greatest commercial potential for European firms.

Although the Commission did not give specific details, it said it would focus on the "emerging markets of Asia", thought likely to include India and South Korea.

While seeking to push through these agreements, Brussels said it was "totally committed" to reviving currently stalled global trade talks.

It also pledged to toughen up its anti-counterfeiting laws and to develop a new strategy for trade co-operation with China.

At the same time, it also promised to review existing sanctions such as anti-dumping measures which critics say are too protectionist.

"The EU economic interests are global and highly complex. We need to be sure that our trade defense instruments and our use of them take account of these new realities,” the Commission said in a statement released to the press.

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Korea, US Free Trade Pact ''Possible'' by Early 2007

WASHINGTON, DC – 10/25/06 – A free trade pact between the US and South Korea could become a reality by early 2007, says chief US negotiator Wendy Cutler at the opening of this week’s fourth round of talks between the two countries; since the two sides launched FTA negotiations in February they have reported little progress even though they postponed consideration of the most politically sensitive issues, such as US access to the Korean rice market.