Nations feature in international trade issues

The United States trade office recently urged the World Trade Organization (WTO) to stop China's copyright piracy, saying that last June's bilateral talks with China about its lenient anti-piracy policies and weak anti-counterfeiting measures have failed. China is said to threaten international trade for impeding the businesses of legitimate companies. Music and computer software industries are said to lose billions of sales due to China's inability to curb copyright theft, which affect international trade industries.

Sean Spicer, spokesperson for US trade representative Susan Schwab, said that while they recognize China's efforts to improve its enforcement on intellectual property rights, there are still more issues to be taken into consideration. The US trade office hopes a WTO intervention will force China to impose aggressive means on enforcing international trade standards on piracy violators.

Meanwhile, despite verbal tirades from U.S. officials over the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), international trade representatives from the United States, Canada, and Mexico held a two-day talk in Canada to discuss key economic concerns. Among the issues raised are the possibility of granting more goods with duty-free treatment as well as improving trade on steel trade, consumer electronics, and swine.

Part of the issues hurled against the agreement are environmental and labor conditions. However, Schwab insisted that the NAFTA agreement is future-oriented. As of 2005, a US$288 billion surge was attributed to international trade between US and Mexico, while an US$18 billion economic boost between Canada and Mexico was reported.

In another news, members of the East African Community (EAC) finally put aside their differences to come up with a unified decision regarding the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA). The document is said to be crucial in establishing the future of the East African nations in the international trade scene.

The EPA is eyed to solve the aftermaths of European Union's (EU) enforcement of the General System of Preferences (GSP) policy. The GSP is among the international trade regulatory rules and guidelines that must be followed and considered by states eying to do business with EU. Meanwhile, beating the December 31 deadline is said to be most beneficial to Kenya with the threat of losing Sh100 billion worth of international trade and investment if EPA would not take its course by the end of the year.