The following is from the 18 January 2013 edition of the Financial Post.

The federal government appears only weeks away from completing negotiations on a Canada-European Union free trade agreement that would be the country’s largest and most important international trade pact in a generation.

The deal is expected to immediately eliminate tariffs on approximately 98% of European goods in Canada and lead to what some observers believe could be a 3%-to-5% drop in the price of consumer goods ranging from European automobiles to clothing to coffee makers.

The following is from the 17 January 2013 edition of Journal of Commerce.

For C-TPAT, something has to change. The number of importers, carriers and other private companies involved in the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism is virtually static. Too many importers are saying “no thanks” to the voluntary security program that reduces the chances participants’ cargo will be stopped for inspection.

The following is excerpted from a 16 January 2013 speech by DG Pascal Lamy of the World Trade Organization.

Director-General Pascal Lamy, during the round table discussion on “New Steps in Measuring Trade in Value Added” at the OECD, Paris on 16 January 2013, said the release by the WTO and OECD of new batches of data to measure trade in value added is a “milestone in this long-term cooperation and endeavour of many players and stakeholders”.

The Aid for Trade Policy Dialogue will bring together a wide range of stakeholders from developing and developed countries to discuss how to continue delivering aid for trade results in a changing international environment for trade and development.

This dialogue is organised by the OECD Development Co-operation and Trade and Agriculture Directorates, in collaboration with the Government of Sweden and the Overseas Development Institute, with the support of the European Commission.

Follow the conference on the OECD website at:

The following is excerpted from a January 2013 media release by the World Customs Organization.

A Leadership and Management Development (LMD) Workshop was conducted by the World Customs Organization (WCO) in Guangzhou, China, from 5-15 November, 2012. The workshop was delivered to 15 senior managers from various areas of China Customs Administration, and was facilitated by Mr. Daniel Perrier, WCO Secretariat and Mr. Rob Jansen, Dutch Tax and Customs.

The following is excerpted from a January 2013 media release by the World Customs Organization.

Nicaragua benefits from the support of a recently launched project funded by Norad: Customs Capacity Building for WCO Members 2012-2015

The following is excerpted from a 16 January 2013 press release by OECD.

Business competitiveness and export performance are increasingly tied to countries’ integration into global production chains and a willingness to open markets to wider imports, according to  preliminary international trade data released today by the OECD and the WTO.

The following is from the 14 January 2013 edition of Industry Week.

PARIS -- Economic activity is picking up or steadying in the United States, the eurozone and in China, the OECD said on Monday, based on leading indicators of activity in the main industrialized economies.

"Composite leading indicators point to stabilizing economic growth in most major economies," the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said.

The following is excerpted from a January 2013 media release by the World Customs Organization.

At the invitation of the Irish Presidency of the European Union (EU), the Secretary General of the WCO, Kunio Mikuriya, addressed the EU Customs Union Group (CUG) in Brussels on Thursday, 10 January 2013.

The following is excerpted from a 10 January 2013 news item by the World Trade Organization.

The United States notified the WTO Secretariat on 10 January 2013 of a request for consultations with Indonesia concerning measures applied by Indonesia to its imports of horticultural products, animals and animal products.

This item is available in its entirety at:
http://www.wto.org/english/news_e/news13_e/ds455rfc_10jan13_e.htm