1.   

Manmohan Singh to visit Brunei for ASEAN meet; greater eco ties on agenda

Looking for greater economic ties with South-East Asian countries, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will visit Brunei and Indonesia from Wednesday during which he will attend ASEAN Summit, as India gears up to ink a Free Trade Agreement with the grouping within next three months. Singh will also attend East Asia Summit on October 10 in Brunei Darussalam, before leaving for his first bilateral visit to Indonesia, where he will be accompanied by External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid and Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma.

2.   

G-33 proposal deserves full engagement, Anand Sharma tells WTO chief

Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma is learnt to have conveyed to the Director-General of WTO, Roberto Avezedo, that the G-33 proposal addressing a critical dimension of the development concerns of developing countries deserves full engagement to reach an outcome in Bali. “India has worked hard and tirelessly to facilitate outcomes in the WTO right from the beginning of the Doha Round and even more so in the efforts to finalise some meaningful deliverables for Bali,” Mr. Sharma told the WTO DG during the closed-door meeting here.

3.   

Free Trade Agreement may double India-Israel trade to $10 bn in 5 years

Israel today said its trade with India can be doubled to USD 10 billion in the next five years, if both the sides work towards concluding the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between them. "The bilateral trade (between India and Israel) is USD 5 billion, at present. I think it could easily be doubled in the next five years, if we take this FTA forward," Israel Minister of Economy Naftali Bennett told reporters on the sidelines of a CII event here.

4.   

Curbing volatility: India, South Africa plan to settle trade in local currencies

India may secure South Africa's approval for setting up a mechanism to settle bilateral trade in local currencies, a move aimed at reducing dependence on the dollar and countering exchange rate volatility. Commerce and industry minister Anand Sharma said he discussed the proposal with his South African counterpart Rob Davies during his visit to Johannesburg last week. "Rob Davies and I have discussed about settling payment in local currency. That is the way forward," Sharma told ET.