In the November 29, 2010 Diario Oficial, the Government of Mexico states that the direct allocation mechanism (first come, first serve) will no longer be solely relied upon to allocate its wool apparel tariff preference level (TPL) under NAFTA for the U.S. and Canadian markets, as Mexico's wool apparel TPL allocation is exhausted during the first half of each year.
European Parliament Member Louis Michel has called for a European Union law, similar to the U.S., to ensure traceability of imported minerals in order to combat the illegal exploitation of conflict minerals in African countries.
In a bid to fight the trade in illegally-harvested timber, the European Parliament's International Trade Committee gave the go-ahead on November 1, 2010 for the European Commission to conclude voluntary partnership agreements with Congo and Cameroon aimed at stopping illegal logging.The agreements seek to combat bad governance practices and corruption from which the illegal trade stems and also provide for import controls at EU borders.
The World Trade Organization has published a request for a waiver by the European Union from GATT Articles I and XIII, concerning autonomous preferences for Pakistan, as an emergency response to promote Pakistan's economic recovery from recent flooding. The waiver would permit the EU to afford unlimited duty-free or other preferential tariff treatment to certain apparel products originating in Pakistan, without being required to extend the same treatment to like products of any other Member.
In the December 2, 2010 edition of the Official Journal of the European Union, the following trade-related notices were posted:
The World Shipping Council (WSC) and the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) have issued a statement entitled “Solving the Problem of Overweight Containers," which urges the International Maritime Organization to establish an international legal requirement that all loaded containers be weighed at the marine port facility before they are stowed aboard a vessel for export.
The World Trade Organization has published a handbook on the WTO Customs Valuation Agreement.
The Government of Canada issued the following releases on Dec 1, 2010:
The Government of Canada issued the following releases on Dec 2, 2010:
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Trade Centre (ITC) have published a new handbook setting out the advantages for exporters in developing countries of closer collaboration between national standards bodies (NSBs) and trade promotion organizations (TPOs), "Building linkages for export success." The handbook is available here.