New car sales in UK fell by nearly 30% last year in their biggest annual drop since 1943. According to the industry, lockdowns aimed to curb the spread of the coronavirus, hit the sector, Reuters reported.

The Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) has placed new tariffs on aircraft manufacturing parts as well as some alcohol products from the European Union in an ongoing transatlantic spat about aerospace subsidies.

The EU opened two investigations into Chinese exporters to assess whether steel screws are being sold in the bloc at excessively low prices and whether optical fibre cables are benefiting from unfair subsidies, news wires reported. The EU increasingly sees China as a systemic rival and has 23 investigations underway into various products exported from the country, according to Reuters.

US decided to add dozens of Chinese companies ncluding the country’s top chipmaker SMIC, to a blacklist related to trade relations, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in a broadcast interview quoted by Reuters.

Fashion centres found themselves under siege as prices of fur rocketed driven by Covid-19 related fears. Potential transmission of the virus between humans and minks forced the Danish government to launch a large-scale execution of animals and forced brands like Louis Vuitton, Dior and Fendi to switch to fox and chinchilla, Reuters reported.

The export credit agencies of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Israel have signed a cooperation agreement to develop economic relations between the two countries, the UAE’s state news agency WAM said.

After a one-month reprieve, passenger car sales in Europe slumped again in October amid new restrictions in many countries aimed at containing a resurgence of the coronavirus, the European carmakers’ association reported Wednesday.

After many years of negotiations, Asia-Pacific nations finally signed the world's biggest free-trade agreement on Sunday at a virtual summit hosted in Hanoi, news wires reported. The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) covers 2.2bn people and 29% of global economic output.

The European Union is poised to move impose tariffs on $4bn of US imports in retaliation for US subsidies for planemaker Boeing, EU diplomats said, teeing up an eleventh-hour showdown with US President Donald Trump.

The US on Monday told the WTO that it regretted the EU's seeking retaliatory tariffs for Boeing subsidies, and that it favoured a "negotiated resolution" with the bloc over its subsidies to rival planemaker Airbus. The US speech, seen by Reuters, came at a meeting of the World Trade Organization’s Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) which gave its formal clearance on Monday for the EU to impose tariffs on $4bn of US goods.