Transport Minister of Jordan, Sahel Majali said the consensus among the representatives and ministers in selecting Jordan for such a project was a big leap before making concrete moves towards inter-Arab co-operation in the transportation sector. All the 22 nations of the Arab League spread across the Gulf and African region is expected to take part in the Arab transportation and related projects.

“As part of the proposal, we have discussed several issues, including custom procedures between Arab countries, visa and movement of people, goods and services, in addition to the establishment of a railway network to connect regional markets,” Majali stated while addressing the joint press meet along with Twaijri. Majali said that he was confident of achieving the ambitious goal particularly because of the determination demonstrated by ministers in overcoming any obstacles.

Twaijri informed that the feasibility report on integration of Arab transportation should be submitted to the Arab leaders by 2011. A proposal to this regard was prepared by the Jordanian government and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (UN-ESCWA).

After the meeting, the ministers and representatives had an audience with the Prime Minister of Jordan, Nader Dahabi to apprise him about the developments. Dahabi pledged support and cooperation for the project, and promised that he would work in removing all roadblocks towards this end.

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The proposal broadly aims at managing grain reserves and prices; and also to improve necessary infrastructure including developing rail network and port capacity through creation of a pool. The Ukrainian Agriculture Policy Minister Yuriy Melnik and the Kazakh Deputy Agriculture Minister Arman Yevniyev welcomed Russia’s proposal during the first such forum.

The US has already come out with a statement saying a cartel in the line of OPEC would only delay Russia’s decade-old ambition of joining the 153-member WTO. Michael Michener from the US Department of Agriculture said Russia the third largest wheat exporter was jeopardizing its chances of becoming the WTO member since such a formation is against the WTO guidelines.

Russia is planning to bring more land under grain cultivation in the coming years as they have 10 percent of world’s arable land that has turned fallow after the collapse of the former Soviet Union. Russia has millions of hectares of chernozem (black earth), an ideal soil for agricultural purposes which are formed by partially decomposed organic matter.

If the new grain union takes shape, it would become the largest exporter and producer of global grain market. In the next 10 to 15 years, Russia plans to produce up to 135mn tons of wheat annually and export 40 to 50mn tons of it, Skrynnik later added. Last year’s bumper harvest made Russia the fourth largest grain producer in the world.

While food prices skyrocketed, Medvedev first proposed such an idea last July to augment food security. It should be noted that a report from London-based think-tank Chatham House early this year stated the climate change, water scarcity and competition for land would make it hard to meet an expected 50 percent rise in demand for food by 2030. Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov told that some of Russia’s 9.6mn tons of grain stockpiles would be set aside to provide humanitarian aid through the UN World Food Program to countries facing starvation as the fallout of global economic crises.

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Export based economy of Japan has been devastated recently by the global economic crisis. The Japan’s exports dropped by 50 percent triggering a 5.4 percent plunge in its GDP due to falling demand for its merchandise from the US and the EU, its major trade partners.

During the meet, Iran invited Japan to set up branches of their banks in Iran, and apprised of the opportunities in fields such as, marine transportation system, oil projects, and construction of marine structures. Another major area of investment brought to the notice by Iran was national railway network project including construction of railroads for express trains and other related projects.

Currently, Japan is the third largest importer of Iran’s industrial and mining products, and about 22 percent of its total oil output is exported to Japan. The two-way trade between both countries is about $20bn in 2008.

With renewed ties, Iran is expecting to triple the trade volume in the coming years through increased economic participation by Japan. Iran’s non-oil exports to Japan include carpets, pistachios and dry fruits.

After concluding the Tokyo visit, Nahavandian informed he had assurances by several Japanese authorities including Japan’s MP, Kotaro Tamura that a Japanese delegation would soon visit the country to review the trade possibilities in Iran. Tamura is one of the strong supporters in fostering better ties with Iran that extend to all spheres of bilateral co-operation. Iran’s anti-American stance and Japan’s US ally status often vexed the relations between both countries for the past several decades.

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A free trade deal with ASEAN member states has strategic importance to India since the country exports 12 percent to these states and imports 10 percent. The FTA is expected to increase the trade from the current $40bn to $50bn by next year.

Indian officials said that there were plans to even sign the India-South Korea Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) along with the ASEAN FTA. The South Korean representatives are expected to attend the upcoming summit to engage in talks with the ASEAN members as well as concluding the formalities on CEPA with India.

Both trade deals require Indian cabinet approval, and would be the first such approval by the United Progressive Alliance after returning to power consecutively for the second time. The FTA had earlier missed the April date due to parliamentary elections in India.

The talks between India and ASEAN were stalled several times as the association insisted on cuts in tariff twice a year. But in the recent talks, India was able to convince the ASEAN members on duty cuts once in twelve months, and the same will be reviewed every January. As per the deal, duty to be cut for the highly sensitive products including tea, coffee, pepper, crude and refined palm oil is between 30 and 45 percent by Dec 31, 2019.

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The US Trade Representative Ron Kirk revealed about the stalemate on the FTA at the sidelines of the inauguration ceremony of the Jacob Zuma presidency. However, he claimed there was still room for growth as South Africa was by far the largest beneficiary of trade under Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). He later added that it was possible to think of a new start with the new government at the helm since the US had very good foundation in South Africa with over 600 US business investments in various sectors.

Even though the central reason for the disinterest is not spelled out by the US authorities, the possibilities to this action seemed to be the same old ones. The old demand of the US particularly the intellectual property rights, and protectionist strategy could have checkmated the deal as of now.

South Africa is one of the SACU members that has largely benefitted by the Generalised System of Preferences that allows certain products to enter the US duty-free. South African clothing and selected textile products have duty-free access to the US market through the AGOA, an initiative of the Clinton administration.

According to the Department of Trade and Industry of South Africa, the US is the largest market for its merchandise. On the other hand, South Africa’s third largest imports are from the US.

South Africa’s trade analyst Peter Draper admitted that the US government’s move did not come as a surprise “for a number of reasons”. In his opinion, the failure to clinch FTA with the US is a huge blow to SACU.

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Chile and India has signed a PTA in January 2005 aimed at increasing bilateral trade. There are 144 products as per the 2005 agreement, and two-way trade reached more than $2bn in 2007-08 fiscal. At the moment there are huge trade imbalances in favour of Chile as India was able to export just about $250mn worth of products to Chile. Higher taxes in Chile have put Indian products at a disadvantage but a FTA with Chile could bring the taxes to zero on many products.

Lately, Chile has entered into FTAs with several countries including the US, Canada, Australia, China, Japan, South Korea, and many Latin American and the EU countries. It should be recalled, the continuance of free market policies was one of the election campaign promises of the incumbent center-left President Michelle Bachelet.

A FTA between India and Chile is likely to provide India to look at other countries in the region to engage in similar trade ties in the future. Indo-Chilean FTA was likely to multiply bilateral trade in copper, wine, aquaculture products, processed food and forestry products indicated the Chilean Ambassador.

Navarro also said that the Indian exports to Chile would substantially increase when the deal was through. He was of the opinion the talks between both countries were delayed due to the Indian elections, and he hoped to hold talks by August to add more products to the list and reduce the tariffs.

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The new FTA is expected to largely benefit the Canadian producers and exporters as the duties of all Canadian non-agricultural merchandise exports are eliminated thus making it more competitive in those markets. Tariffs will also be removed or reduced on selected Canadian agricultural exports such as durum wheat, frozen french fries, beer and crude canola oil.

Now Canada will have access to state of the art technologies and other knowhow from the sophisticated EFTA markets at lower costs that includes the importation of machinery and scientific and precision instruments. Besides, the new deal is likely to attract other European countries as well in reaching similar trade ties and thereby increase the visibility of the Canadian business entities over there.

The EFTA was the seventh-largest export destination of Canada last year. The two-way trade between both parties reached $13.2bn in 2008 with Canada exporting goods worth $4.2bn. In 2007, the two-way trade was valued at about $12.9bn with the Canadian exports and imports reaching at about $5.2bn and about $7.7bn respectively.

According to the deal, there will be significant cuts in tariffs of merchandise from both sides, but Canada’s tariffs on sensitive shipbuilding products will stay. They have decided to waive these tariffs in phases over a period of 15 years with regard to the sensitivity of each product.

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