ISDS Case Map
corporate interests
Free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations between South Korea and the United States is expected to pick up speed in 2005 as the two countries have agreed to hold the first preliminary meeting to examine the feasibility of the Korea-US FTA early next year.
US drug manufacturers are planning a New Year's push to pressure Canberra to unwind initiatives to cut medicine prices.
The government on Tuesday approved a basic plan to promote free-trade agreements, prioritizing accords with Asian trading partners to help build an East Asian community. It also adopted a set of 12 criteria to choose potential FTA partners, envisioning future negotiations with trading partners outside East Asia.
The New Zealand, Chile and Singapore governments are promoting a P-3
whose primary - and arguably only - beneficiaries are the transnational companies that
straddle two of the three countries, including opportunists who locate there to take advantage
of the deal. The greatest potential beneficiaries are the agribusiness interests of Fonterra and
Nestle as they promote their shared strategy to dominate Latin America's dairy industry.
An Issues Paper for the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC)
T Shinawatra Thai Silk (Thailand) Co Ltd, a family business of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, is negotiating with an Australian fashion designer to form a joint venture that benefits from low import tariffs under the Thai-Australia free-trade agreement.
A new trade promotion group -- the US Middle East Free Trade Coalition (USMEFTA) -- has been created to "expand free trade between the US and the Middle East and to encourage economic development, transparent and accountable governance, and enhanced prospects for the people of the Middle East region."
Prime Minister John Howard may bow to a concerted campaign by American drug companies against the amendments that the government was forced into accepting upon pressure from the Labor Party.
In negotiating trade agreements with Morocco, Chile and other countries, the Bush administration has used the same approach that earned us the enmity of so much of the rest of the world. The bilateral agreements reveal an economic policy dictated more by special interests than by a concern for the well-being of our poorer trading partners.
A Free Trade Agreement between Bahrain and the US was signed last month but will not come into effect until it has been ratified by the US Congress, now in recess for the presidential election.
