Singapore enhance STS effective from 1 April 2014

According to Circular No: 04/2014 dated Feb 26, 2014 issued by Singapore Customs, they enhance Strategic Trade Scheme ("STS") effective 1 April 2014, but with 6 months grace period.
In short, export license system will be changed, especially Tier 2 and Tier 3 bulk licenses.
It looks bulk permit system is simplified and easier to understand and handle for traders.if
See details in:  http://www.customs.gov.sg/NR/rdonlyres/6B9EA876-92CF-41D7-8758-25916F32D8C2/0/STSCircularFinal.pdf

Third Round of Negotiations for RCEP

According to the MOFA news release on Jan 24, the third round of negotiations for Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership ("RCEP") was held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, from January 20 to 24. 

In this round of negotiations, the meetings of the Trade Negotiating Committee, in which senior officials participated, and of working groups concerning issues such as Trade in Goods, Trade in Services and Investment were held. Also, the scope and method of negotiations, amongst others, were discussed, and it was decided to establish the new working groups on Competition, Intellectual Property, Economic and Technical Cooperation and Dispute Settlement.

The next round of negotiations will be held in China in April, 2014.

Overhaul of the BIS Unverified List

Effective January 21, 2014, a new rule issued by BIS have significant impact to traders.  It is overhaul of BIS Unverified List ("UVL") screening requirement.  The bullet points of changes are as follows.

• UVL is reshuffled.  All parties listed on the current UVL will be removed, and subsequently be added to a new UVL.  (as of today, I don't find new UVL on the BIS web site, though.)
• Exporters will need to file an AES records (customs declaration in US) for all exports to the entities on UVL.  This is nearly no exception.
• No license exceptions will apply for exports, re-exports, and transfers (in-country) of items subject to the EAR to the transaction with UVL entities.
• For no license required transaction under the EAR, exporters must obtain a signed and dated written statement from UVL entities before the transactions.

See news letter from Bryan Cave LLP in;
http://www.bryancave.com/files/Publication/a061fbc1-d778-4c73-bd82-553bfab0316c/Presentation/PublicationAttachment/45281c4e-2dc0-471d-bf0c-57c8a8145d69/IRB516.pdf

Japan, Turkey agree on EPA negotiation to start

Japan and Turkey agreed on Jan. 7, 2014 to begin talks on an economic partnership agreement ("EPA").  Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, agreed during talks in Tokyo to launch negotiations on the partnership pact.

(Source:  MOFA web site  http://www.mofa.go.jp/mofaj/kaidan/page3_000616.html )

TPP ministerial session in December 2013 ends without final agreement

On December 10, 2013, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (“TPP”) free trade talk was wrapped up a ministerial negotiation session without a full agreement in Singapore.  At the end of the meeting, the statement of the ministers and heads of delegation for the TPP countries announced that they have made “substantial progress” toward completing the TPP.  Although the trade talk missed the December 2013 target for ending the talk, they expressed the member countries identified potential “landing zones” for the majority of key outstanding issues in the text.  They decided to continue their “intensive work” to finalize the agreement and expressed the intention to follow up negotiation work and meet again in January 2014.

 

The key issues to prevent the whole negotiation was the conflict between Japan and the United States, which have had trade in goods issues including Japanese tariffs on farm products as well as auto import in the United States.  They failed to fill the gaps during the key session in Singapore.  In addition to tariff issues, the TPP member states have also agreed to carry over to next year on other remaining issues such as intellectual property rights and reform of state-owned firms.

The TPP has now 12 member states, Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam, which represent about 40 percent of world GDP and one-third of world trade. 

The Fifth Round of Negotiations for the Japan-Mongolia EPA

The Fifth Round of the Negotiations for the Japan-Mongolia Economic Partnership Agreement ("EPA") will be held from December 16 to 19, and 24,2013 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

In this round, negotiations in areas including Trade in Goods, Investment,　E-commerce, Rules of Origin, Customs Procedures, Competition, Cooperation, Dispute Settlement, Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS) and Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) are scheduled to be held.

Third Round of Negotiations on a FTA among Japan, China and Korea

The third round of negotiations on a Free Trade Agreement (“FTA”) among Japan, China and Korea was held in Tokyo, Japan from November 26 to 29.  In this round of negotiations, wide range of areas such as Trade in Goods, Trade in Services, Investment, Competition Policies, Intellectual Property, amongst others, were discussed.  While these three counties have certain political tension in area of territorial disputes and interpretation of wartime history, a Japanese trade ministry official said “The three countries are cooperating and the political discord has not adversely affected the negotiations.”  According to major newspapers, the work plan of the negotiation was presented to three countries, however, customs tariff negotiation in Trade in Goods was not significant progress this time, as the gap of opinion among the countries is still large.  The three countries will work towards holding the next round of negotiations in Korea, around February 2014.

Tokyo, Beijing and Seoul announced the launch of the FTA negotiation in 2012 and held the first meeting in Seoul in late March 2013. The second meeting was held in Shanghai from July to August 2013.  It is targeted to reach substantial agreement of the negotiation by the end of 2014.