1.   

To stop misuse of free trade agreements, finance ministry plans text review

The finance ministry is pushing for a review of the model text for free trade agreements (FTAs) after recent misuse of bilateral pacts exposed many loopholes in the pacts India has entered into with its trading partners. The North Block wants the agreements to provide more teeth to revenue authorities such as powers of automatic suspension of trade in a particular good if gross misuse of the provisions of agreement is discovered. It has asked the commerce department to review the draft.

2.   

India gets on the highway to growth in Southeast Asia

As India readies to sign the free trade agreement on services and investment with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), taking bilateral trade relations to the next level of a comprehensive economic partnership agreement, the focus is on the laying out of a massive road connectivity plan to tie the region together to boost economic objectives. To start with, India has proposed extending the trilateral highway project connecting India, Myanmar and Thailand to neighbouring Cambodia and Vietnam.

3.   

Grapes exports to hit a record on EU push

On good monsoon, India is likely to export a record quantity of grapes for the second consecutive year as Indian crop is in good demand in Europe and Russia. This is a cause of concern for the Indian exporters as the record shipments last year had led to a price crash in Europe. "As India is the only supplier to Europe during February to April, Indians competed against each other by exporting more, leading to a price crash towards the end of the 2012-13 season," said a Mumbai-based exporter.

4.   

Govt plans more wheat export tenders to cash in on good price

Buoyed by the strong response to its attempt to sell wheat from state-run warehouses, the government is planning to open a series of such export tenders in the months of January, February and March to sell a total of around 2 million tonne of wheat in the overseas market. Tuesday, state-owned trading firms--State Trading Corporation(STC), Metals and Minerals Trading Corporation (MMTC) and PEC Ltd-- received bids in the range of $284.7-289.9 per tonne for shipment of 0.34 million tonne from the Food Corporation of India (FCI) godowns.