New trade deal falls ’well short’: Truss
Stock & Land | 13/03/2009
New trade deal falls ’well short’: Truss
The new ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement falls well short of what could be considered a good deal for Australian industry, according to the Shadow Minister for Trade, Warren Truss.
Mr Truss says Australia seems to have given away much more than it will receive in return.
Under the new agreement, Australia has agreed to reduce 96.4pc of its tariffs to zero by next year, compared with 47.6pc at the beginning of the agreement.
Of the 12 countries which are party to the agreement, only Singapore will have lower tariffs in 2010 - but Singapore has a range of trade restrictions on services which will not be lowered, he says.
Three countries will have less than 5pc of their tariff lines reduced to zero by 2010.
Even New Zealand will only reach 84.7pc by 2010.
While sometime between 2020 and 2025 most tariffs will be eliminated, for some key Australian industries market access will never be improved.
From the first day of the new trade agreement, all Australian tariffs on agricultural imports will be reduced to zero permanently.
But Australian farmers will continue to face major tariff barriers when they seek to export agricultural products to ASEAN countries.
Mr Truss claimed that it was "an exercise of double standards to look after Labor’s union mates" which resulted in the Government agreeing only to tit-for-tat style tariff reductions for passenger motor vehicles, clothing, textile and footwear and a range of other manufactured goods.
The agreement provides only small improvements in access for services and is a major disappointment for Australia’s growing services exporters, Mr Truss says.
Many key products will receive little or no improved access.
Rice, for instance, has been excluded from any tariff reduction commitments or improved market access offers by Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines.
Maize has been excluded from the tariff comments by Indonesia.
Indonesia and Malaysia have excluded wine and spirits.
Vietnam has excluded 41 mineral lines from tariff commitments.
Malaysia will continue to restrict access to Australian milk.
The Australian fruit industry placed a high priority on access for mandarins into Indonesia.
However, there will be no reductions in citrus tariffs until at least 2025 (and possibly 2028) and even then the 25pc tariff will only be reduced by 6.4pc.
ASEAN countries take almost one third of Australia’s sugar exports and the sugar industry has particular reason to feel let down by the Australian Government, he says.
The Trade Minister, Simon Crean, was a constant critic when trade agreements negotiated by the previous Government did not make big enough advances in sugar.
After the negotiation of the US-Australia FTA in March 2005, Mr Crean said: "We can’t allow that sort of thing to happen again."
Mr Crean raised the issue again in May last year when he said that "unlike the previous Government, we are not selling out Australian agriculture to pursue an FTA at any cost".
"In his first test Mr Crean has failed his owned rhetoric," Mr Truss says.
Most of the signatories to the new AANZ FTA agreement have made no concessions on sugar at all.
And where concessions are on offer they come from the smallest ASEAN countries and most of these improvements will have to wait until 2023 to be delivered.
Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand will do nothing.
Thailand actually delivered much more for sugar under the Thailand-Australia FTA negotiated by the previous Coalition Government, than it has offered under this agreement negotiated by Labor.
