Trade : New efforts to bring long-buried MAI into WTO (PRIV)
(D. Ravi Kanth, Geneva)
A group of countries - Argentina, Brazil, China, Russia, Hong Kong (China), Mexico, Nigeria, Colombia, Korea, and Australia among others - has stepped up its efforts to bring back the long-buried Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) to the World Trade Organization in the form of an Investment Facilitation Agreement for Development, several trade envoys told SUNS.

Trade : US, China argue over subsidy notifications, support measures (PRIV)
(Kanaga Raja, Geneva)
A meeting of the WTO Committee on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (SCM) this week heard the United States and China arguing over US criticisms of China's record on subsidy notifications, as well as over each other's subsidy programmes.

Finance : World Bank must stop encouraging harmful tax competition (PRIV)
(Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram, Sydney/Kuala Lumpur)
Sydney/Kuala Lumpur, 26 Apr (IPS/Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram*) -- One of the 11 areas that the World Bank's Doing Business (DB) report includes in ranking a country's business environment is paying taxes.

Caribbean : CARICOM's energy-efficient building code could be tough sell (PRIV)
(IPS, Port of Spain)
Caribbean Community (CARICOM) states are in the process of formulating an energy efficiency building code for the region that would help reduce CO2 emissions, but implementation of the code may depend heavily on moral suasion for its success.