PACER
Niue has ratified the regional trade agreement PACER Plus, pushing it closer to implementation.
Solomon Islands is the sixth country to ratify Pacer Plus. The agreement comes into force 60 days after at least eight of the 11 signatories have ratified.
The Pacific Island Countries (PICs) are taking on disproportionate binding commitments in exchange for false promises of benefits from the regional free trade deal known as PACER-Plus.
What the development assistance arrangement results in, is aid money, tightly controlled by Australia and New Zealand to flow to areas that will make Forum Island Countries uphold their commitments on market access, ultimately benefiting the two metropolitan Parties.
PACER-Plus itself achieved little by way of actual improvements for Pacific Islander workers to access the labour markets of Australia and New Zealand.
The trade deal known as Pacer Plus will have immediate benefits for the Cook Islands when it comes into force later this year, says the Cooks’ deputy prime minister.
Tonga’s government has committed to ratifying the Pacer Plus trade deal.
In this interview, we discuss the PACER+ trade deal, the post Cotonou talks with the EU and the influence of China’s Belt and Road Initiative in the Pacific region.
Cook Islands Prime Minister has signalled his government will shortly ratify a major regional trade agreement.
Pacer Plus has been promoted as a hybrid development and trade deal, with the primary benefits going to the nine Pacific countries that have signed the deal.
Samoa becomes the first of the Pacific Island nations and the third country overall to ratify the agreement, known as PACER Plus.
Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker has congratulated Samoa on their ratification of the Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic Relations Plus (PACER Plus).
The Cook Islands’ decision to hit pause on the deal was over the country’s impending graduation from developing to developed-country-status. Under its new status it may no longer be eligible for official development assistance, including under PACER Plus.
The concerns held by Pacific communities and some Pacific island governments about the regional free trade agreement known as PACER-Plus are well founded according to new analysis released by the Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG).
New Zealand has become the first country to ratify a Pacific free trade deal.
New Zealand Labour-led government’s ‘Trade for All agenda’ is somehow meant to re-engender confidence without addressing any issues.
PACER-Plus is a highly problematic FTA containing far too many concessions by Forum Island Countries to Australia and New Zealand, reshaping Pacific Island economies.
The PNG government is doing some soul searching over whether to join the Pacer Plus free trade deal and potentially could sign up by the end of the year.
PACER-Plus will undermine the right of governments to regulate, and see the Pacific bear the burden of binding commitments in the areas of interest to Australia and New Zealand whilst getting little legal commitments in return.
The Kingdom of Tonga’s Prime Minister, ’Akilisi Pohiva, threw more doubt over Tonga’s signature on the PACER-Plus free trade agreement.
