During the visit to the Portugal’s capital Lisbon, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu met with his Portuguese counterpart Luis Amado for the signing of the deal as well as to hold diplomatic talks. Davutoglu while signing the accord stated the bilateral trade between Turkey and Portugal had reached $826mn last year, and there was great prospect of improving from the current value.

Now the deal will go through a formal ratification process by both the countries’ parliaments. The effective date will be declared once the deal is approved by the respective houses.

The similar facilitation of the new deal has been a longstanding demand of Turkey with the EU as agreements signed by the EU and Turkey necessitate that Turks be exempted from visas. However, the EU’s recent nod to three Balkan states including Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro for visa-free travel to their nationals has heightened the Turkish demand for such relaxation is extended to its citizens too.

It should be recalled, last year, the European Court of Justice has issued a ruling paving the way for Turkish businesspeople providing services in the EU member states to enter the EU without having to obtain visas first under a 1973 deal called the Additional Protocol to the Ankara Agreement. While speaking at the occasion, the Portuguese Foreign Minister said that Portugal hoped the membership negotiations would be concluded as soon as possible.

At the sidelines of his official visit, the Turkish Foreign Minister also met up with the visiting Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki to discuss bilateral co-operation and trilateral agreements on exchange of fuel for the Tehran research reactor. A tripartite agreement on the exchange of uranium was reached May 17 between Iran, Turkey and Brazil.

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While Rompuy visited Croatia, he told that the country would become the second state from the region to enter the EU after Slovenia’s inclusion in 2004. Croatia’s entry to the EU seemed to be likely soon as indicated in the words of the president, he said, “Croatia’s joining the EU will give a positive signal to the region by proving that the accession to the EU is attainable.”

Incidentally, Croatia’s EU accession negotiations started five years ago, and only after Rompuy assumed office in December 2009 they gained some steam. However, the Daily Delo, a leading Slovenian newspaper has questioned the president’s earnestness of the integration of the region to the EU zone.

On the contrary, while Rompuy visited Belgrade the Serbian President Boris Tadic expressed dissatisfaction with the decelerated process of the EU integration as he felt it was crucial for the future of the West Balkans. The Serbian business community has often complained about the problems they faced without the ticket to the EU despite they produced low cost quality goods.

Rompuy reiterated that progress in European integration primarily depended on each candidate’s own merit and performance. Nonetheless, it has to be seen whether the merit mantra would alone work as an expansion model to the EU as it may also rely on solving the ongoing financial crisis which quaked the EU after showing signs of recovery from the global meltdown.

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During the Soviet era, Russia was a gross grain importer and over the last few years the country has grown as the largest grain exporter. Through the new food policy Russia seemed to have set an achievable target as grain exports to other countries are expected to reach 38mn tons by 2015.

Russia during the World Grain Forum in June, 2009 had initiated a food security tie up with the largest wheat consuming states such as India, China and Turkey to build wheat reserve stocks as well as to cushion future price slides, which has been faced by Russian farmers today. Despite the second-best year for exports and increasing demand from livestock farmers, grain prices still remain low on account of high domestic grain inventory.

Viktor Zubkov, the first Deputy Prime Minister of Russia during the Forum had urged foreign investors to develop the 20mn hectares of unused arable land in Russia. The country’s wheat production has crossed 65mn tons, and has set eyes at producing 100mn tons this year despite sinking wheat prices.

In a last week’s report by RIA Novosti, it stated meat production in Russia was also witnessing significant growth over the past few years. Agriculture Minister Elena Skrynnik while she met Medvedev informed domestic meat production grew 14 percent to 3.3mn tons last year, reducing imports by 20 percent.

Similarly, though Russia is short of poultry production, the recent ban on the US poultry is intended to stimulate domestic poultry production. Russia banned imports of the US chlorine-treated poultry as of 1 January on non-compliance to country’s safety standards, a decision likely to hike domestic poultry prices.

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Turkey has also imposed similar duties on Indian goods during the same period. Indian governmental agencies involved in the exercise of getting the tariff rolled back appeared confident as Egypt’s decision was likely to prompt Turkey to follow the same steps to avoid any confrontation with India in this regard.

Ever since Egypt and Turkey imposed these additional duties, India had taken up the cause to both governments to have a relook at the issue and warned that they would challenge this at the WTO. The imposition of such tariffs is in direct violation to the WTO rules unless it proved that the imports are causing serious damage to its domestic industry.

Egypt’s move is likely to act as a disincentive to other countries that are planning to slap such duties on Indian goods. However, The Confederation of Indian Textile Industry (CITI) said the tariff roll back would have only marginal impact on the exports since the global economy had not recovered yet.

The tariff imposed by Egypt in January on Indian goods was for a period of one year which included half a dollar on every kilogramme of cotton textile, and every kilogramme of processed sugar attracted $1. India is the largest exporter of cotton yarn to Egypt and the exports stood at about $115mn in 2007-08 fiscal. The two-way overall trade during the same period between both countries was about $3.5bn.

Indian exports have recorded a negative growth for the past five months, and the country is leaving no stone unturned to get them back on track. According to the Ministry of Commerce of India the talks are progressing to get a similar decision from the Turkish government.

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