Friday, March 29, 2024

Latin America trade still on table

Avatar photo
The Government has brought out its big guns as it fights to keep dairy and beef access on the table in Latin American free-trade talks.
Reading Time: 2 minutes

New Zealand was the first of four countries last year to be invited to join trade talks with the Pacific Alliance of Mexico, Peru, Chile and Colombia.

Dubbed the Pacific Pumas their combined economies are equal in size to the world’s sixth largest and have won plaudits for their goal of free trade by 2020.

NZ has put considerable effort into getting the green light to join the talks, which it had participated in over a number of years as an observer.

Given the group’s free-trade ambitions NZ was confident of elimination of tariffs on all major agricultural exports to the quartet’s consumer markets.

As with all of NZ’s trade negotiations it had been prepared to haggle over the exact timeline to get a deal done.

It had also emphasised the diversified nature of NZ’s primary exports meant it is unlikely to flood the Latin American countries’ markets even if tariffs are cut to zero.

But those assurances counted for little for Colombia, which, before the most recent negotiating round in Mexico City last month revealed it is not prepared to open its market further to dairy and beef from its negotiating partners.

The new negotiating position followed a no-show by Colombian negotiators at the previous round of talks in Auckland in September.

Dairy Companies Association executive director Kimberly Crewther said the negotiating position raises fresh doubts about Colombia’s free-trade credentials and suitability to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) trade agreement due to come into force for its first 11 participants later this year.

NZ, by virtue of its being a founding member, has the right to veto any new application to join the CPTPP.

Trade Minister David Parker said Colombia is the only country to have so far formally applied to join the CPTPP.

“NZ has always been clear that accession to CPTPP is open to all who can meet the high standards of the agreement. 

“Unfortunately Colombia’s most recent offer in the Pacific Alliance negotiations, effectively excluding beef and dairy, is not one we can or will accept.

“Nor could it be acceptable for CPTPP accession.”

National’s trade spokesman Todd McClay said as well as making it clear CPTPP is off the table for Colombia the Government should seek assurances from the rest of the Pacific Alliance countries that they won’t follow in its footsteps and seek to exclude beef and dairy from the deal.

McClay, who kicked off the talks with the Alliance last June while he was still trade minister, said while improved access to the Colombian market was not to be sniffed at the main prize for NZ in the talks had always been improvement on the deal it had been able to get from Mexico on dairy market access in the CPTPP.

In those talks Mexico had agreed to limited increases in tariff-free quota for dairy imports.

“David Parker needs to put all the effort he can into this to ensure NZ farmers have a level playing field around dairy and other products in the Mexico market.

McClay said rather than leaving that job to his officials Parker needed to do it personally.

“That is the type of trade diplomacy that will solve this problem.”

The other countries in the talks with the Pacific Alliance are Singapore, Australia and Canada. 

Total
0
Shares
People are also reading