Indonesia will ban nickel exports beginning Jan. 1, 2020, instead of the originally proposed date in 2022, according to a Sept. 17 blog post by Baker McKenzie. The ban, announced by the country’s Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry, will “apply to all different types of nickel” and not “just nickel ore with certain percentages,” the post said. The ban is expected to be cleared by Indonesia’s Ministry of Law and Human Rights before taking effect, the post said.

A U.S. decoupling from China would be a mistake, China’s U.S. ambassador said, criticizing what he called the U.S.’s alarmist foreign policy and its “wrong rationale” for starting a trade war with China. Ambassador Cui Tiankai said decoupling may not even be possible because of the “inseparable links” between the two countries. “And considering China’s advantages in cost, market and supply chain and its growing edge in innovation, to decouple from China is to decouple from opportunities,” Cui said, speaking Sept. 17 in New York.

China is planning to strengthen its export controls through a new law that may be implemented this year, according to a Sept. 16 Lexology post from AnJie Law Firm.

China is amending measures surrounding its food safety inspections regime, the Hong Kong Trade Development Council said in a Sept. 17 report. Random food safety inspections will be defined as "regulatory, risk-related or evaluatory as is deemed appropriate" given "varying priorities accorded individual inspections," HKTDC said. The revised provisions also clarify that all impromptu inspections must be selected randomly, revise China’s re-inspection procedures and more. The changes take effect Oct. 1.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agricultural Service released on Sept. 13 a report on China’s second round of tariff exclusions, including a list of eligible products, eligible applicants, how to apply for exemptions and their scope of eligibility. The report includes translations of the more than 400 tariff lines of U.S. agricultural goods that are eligible for exemption. Applications for exclusions are being accepted by China's Ministry of Finance through Oct. 18, 2019.

A Chinese State Council official recently met with Russian officials to discuss “a number of pragmatic cooperation agreements” in several areas, including trade, agriculture and technology, a Chinese Ministry of Commerce spokesperson said during a Sept. 12 press conference, according to an unofficial translation of a transcript of the event. The two sides also agreed to create a “Northeast-Far East Business Council” and plan to hold the first meeting this year, the spokesman said. China said its goal is “expanding and strengthening traditional trade” with Russia, and to “accelerate the negotiation of economic and trade system arrangements.”

China criticized comments from Australia’s former prime minister about Huawei after he suggested Britain follow the U.S. and Australia's lead and also ban products of the Chinese tech giant. The comments were “a blatant discrimination against Chinese companies,” a China Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said during a Sept. 12 press conference, according to a transcript in English provided by the Chinese Embassy in Washington. “Australia has also been lecturing other countries about the 5G network and encouraging them to follow suit. Such disgraceful and immoral conduct is against basic market principles and international rules, which China firmly opposes.”

China issued guidance for its free trade agreement with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the rules of origin for imports and exports, according to a Sept. 11 KPMG alert.

Singapore Customs arrested three men for being involved in a scheme to evade import tariffs on more than 3,400 cartons of cigarettes, Singapore said in a Sept. 11 press release. The men had hidden the cigarettes inside 10 “large spools of cable wires” and kept them in a warehouse, the notice said. The men planned to place the cigarettes in “canvas bags for delivery to other parts of Singapore,” the press release said, and avoided more than $300,000 (in Singapore dollars) in duties and taxes. The men face a maximum fine of up to 40 times the amount of unpaid taxes and a maximum six-year prison sentence.

South Korea’s antidumping duties on Japanese valves are a violation of international trade rules, the World Trade Organization said in a Sept. 10 decision. The WTO ordered South Korea to change the duties on “pneumatic transmission” valves to bring them into “conformity” with WTO obligations. The decision upheld a previous ruling made by the WTO in 2018 that determined South Korea’s antidumping measures violate WTO rules.