BRUSSELS, Belgium, Dec. 11--EU foreign ministers on Monday adopted rules allowing practically free access to the European market for products from 15 African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) nations who have agreed an interim trade deal with the bloc.
A further 27 ACP nations, including 14 in the Caribbean, risk having higher customs tariffs if they fail to initial new trade deals by the end of the year, AFP wrote..
Monday’s decision affects seven African nations--Botswana, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Mauritius, Seychelles, Swaziland and Zimbabwe--plus Fiji and Papua New Guinea in the Pacific.
All their export products, except rice and sugar, will be allowed into the EU without duty charges or quota restrictions. In exchange they will progressively open their markets to European goods--to between 80 percent and 97 percent depending on the country involved--over the next 25 years.
Six other African nations are also included in the rules adopted Monday--Burundi, Lesotho, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda--will retain their preferential market access as less developed nations, even if they don’t initial a new deal.
The World Trade Organization deemed the current regime incompatible with international rules and in effect ordered them to be replaced by 2008.
Seeing that it would be impossible to reach a full agreement in time, the Commission has concluded interim agreements in recent weeks, dealing solely with goods and leaving the services aspect of the deal to be hammered out next year. But even the lesser agreement has proved elusive in some cases.
South Africa, which already has a bilateral agreement with the EU, and therefore has nothing to lose, is among the hold outs.
EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said that the Pacific nations yet to initial a deal did practically no trade with the European Union and therefore would not lose out. In Africa, Ghana, Cameroon and Gabon were set to sign a deal soon, he said. But Namibia, along with South Africa, is proving a tougher problem, he told reporters. Some nations “have shown no interest in the negotiations because they seem to believe they do not need the EU’s privileges,“ he said.
Namibia has still refused to sign up, as has Congo, said Mandelson.
So has Nigeria, but with its large oil reserves, it is deemed to be less in danger economically if it fails to agree.

Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi

BEIJING, Dec. 11--China on Tuesday said constant US criticism over trade disputes was hurting economic ties, although world powers agreed at top-level talks to cooperate on improving the safety of Chinese exports.
Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi used her opening remarks at an annual one-day trade meeting here to hit out at what she said was rising protectionist sentiment in the United States, AFP reported.
“There have been some disharmonious notes in China-US relations this year. The inclination to politicize (trade) issues has increased,“ Wu said. “Trade restrictions, and protectionist measures, can only hurt both sides.“
She was referring to a spate of bills introduced by US lawmakers that could lead to new legislation targeting alleged unfair Chinese trade practices, amid an ever-expanding trading imbalance between the two sides.
The United States’ trade deficit with China ballooned to $23.8 billion in September.
The United States has also initiated action at the World Trade Organization this year over trade disputes, including alleged Chinese intellectual property rights abuses and unfair industrial subsidies.
US Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said that, during talks among delegation chiefs before the official meeting, Wu had “mentioned very strongly and very directly that she felt uncomfortable“ with the US actions at the WTO.
Gutierrez urged China not to take offense at the WTO complaints. “When we take a case forward in a legal fashion, we do so as a matter of business but never as a matter of disrespect,“ he said, while adding that the US administration remained opposed to protectionism.
In her opening remarks to Gutierrez and Trade Representative Susan Schwab, co-leaders of the US delegation, Wu also criticized US media reports about the safety of Chinese-made products.

A South Korean cargo train arrives at Panmun station as North Korean railway officials guide the train at the North Korean border city of Kaesong on Tuesday.

DORASAN STATION, South Korea, Dec. 11--North and South Korea began regular cargo train service across their heavily armed border Tuesday for the first time in more than a half-century, marking another symbolic step in their reconciliation.
The 12-car train carried construction materials to a North Korean border station, and then returned home carrying shoes, underwear and other items produced at a South-North joint industrial complex in the North Korean border city of Kaesong, AP said.
The service is one of the tangible results of an October summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun that outlined a series of joint projects. It comes months after the two sides conducted a one-time test run of passenger trains on two reconnected tracks on the western and eastern sides of the peninsula.
The cargo train will make a 16.5-kilometer (10-mile) round trip every weekday to North Korea.
It remains unclear whether regular passenger train service will start anytime soon, but one of the train’s engineers was hopeful Tuesday.
“I expect a day will come when South Koreans visit North Korean tourist attraction freely by train,“ Shin Jang-chul, whose parents are from what is now North Korea, told reporters before departing.
South Korea hopes the inter-Korean railway will ultimately be linked through North Korea to Russia’s Trans-Siberian railroad and allow an overland route connecting the peninsula to Europe--significantly cutting delivery times for freight that now requires sea transport.

HANNOVER, Germany, Dec. 11--Labor shortage issues dominated a German summit on new technologies Monday, but Economy Minister Michael Glos nonetheless ruled out calls for easing rules on hiring foreign workers.
“The next priority is the qualification of our own workforce,“ Gloss said while expressing his opposition to opening “the doors to immigration.“
Professionals in the IT, telecommunications and new media sectors gathered in this northern city under the government’s auspices, and the tight Labor market that has hampered their development was at the center of discussions, AFP reported.
With around 43,000 vacant posts, high-tech German companies have called for immigration rules to be eased so they can search for candidates outside the European Union, especially in Asia.
August-Wilhelm Scher, president of the sector federation Bitkom, said “losses can be calculated in billions“ from the inability to fill high-skilled jobs. “Some companies have lost entire projects“ because they could not find the appropriate personnel, he said.

QUITO, Ecuador, Dec. 11--Ecuador will open bidding for a major oil project in a jungle nature reserve next June if the poor Andean country does not raise international funding to abandon the proposal, the oil minister said Monday.
The government is seeking a minimum of US$350 million (238 million euros) a year from the international community for 10 years not to drill in the Ishpingo-Tiputini-Tambococha fields located in Yasuni National Park, in Ecuador’s northeastern jungle. The money is to compensate Ecuador for income it would have generated by drilling for oil at the site, AP wrote.
The jungle area, which holds close to 1 billion barrels of crude, is part of a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. Some environmentalists say the reserve has more varieties of plant life than the United States and Canada combined.
On Monday, Ecuadorian Oil Minister Galo Chiriboga told Teleamazonas TV that if the money is not collected by June 15, bidding on the fields will begin the following day.
“Either the international support not to drill is obtained or we go ahead with the auction,“ he said.
The proposal, announced by Ecuador earlier this year, has been praised by some environmentalists as an innovative way to compensate poor nations for not drilling.
“It’s a real pioneer proposal for an oil exporter,“ Kevin Koenig of California-based environmental organization Amazon Watch told AP. “Ecuador is making a sacrifice to try to make this happen.“
Ecuadorian environmental group Cedenma said it was skeptical of the government’s intentions after Monday’s announcement that it may open bidding.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 11--The US economy has sailed through a series of rough patches, but the Federal Reserve is likely to cut interest rates Tuesday to guard against the effects of a brewing economic storm, analysts say.
The Federal Open Market Committee headed by Fed chairman Ben Bernanke is widely expected to trim its key federal funds rate, currently at 4.5 percent, by a quarter-point after cuts in September and October, AFP reported.
A few analysts say the Fed may make a bolder half-point cut, and some say policymakers may offer a bigger reduction in the discount rate, a heretofore little-used tool to loan directly to commercial banks when credit is scarce. A decision was expected around 1415 GMT Tuesday.
Even though the world’s biggest economy has managed solid growth over the second and third quarters of 2007, some analysts say the Fed must be prepared for a downturn in the face of tight credit and a worsening housing slump.
Scott Anderson, economist at Wells Fargo, said the central bank “needs to be forward-looking here, and despite signs that the economy today is still operating at a respectable pace.“
Anderson added that the bond market, often seen as a harbinger of the economy is “still firmly in the recession camp.“
“Banks are responding to the rise in their cost of funds and declining credit quality by shoring up their lending standards on a wide spectrum of products, prime and sub-prime mortgages, consumer loans and credit cards,“ he said. “Historically, when banks begin to close the financial taps in such a broad way, the economy tends to land in a funk, if not outright recession.“
“A mild recession is now likely,“ said economists Richard Berner and David Greenlaw at Morgan Stanley, citing the drying up of credit. “Lenders and investors are tightening credit for commercial, credit card and auto lending, as well as for mortgage borrowers,“ they wrote in a note to clients. “We expect domestic demand to contract by an average one percent annualized in each of the next three quarters.“