Saturday, March 30, 2024

UK-NZ trade talks to ‘intensify’

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The Government says it will step up the pace in trade talks with the United Kingdom as it scrambles to keep up with Australia, which recently said it hopes to conclude its own deal with the UK in the next few weeks.
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Australia’s rapid progress towards a trade agreement with the UK comes despite starting negotiations at the same time as New Zealand a year ago.

Following a recent phone call between Trade Minister Damien O’Connor and his British counterpart Liz Truss, O’Connor said the UK and NZ would press the accelerator on talks with the intention of concluding a deal in the “coming months”.

“Teams will now intensify talks, with chief negotiators meeting monthly and the next formal rounds of talks scheduled for early June and July,” O’Connor said in a statement.

He says good progress had been made in the most recent negotiating round last month on a number of issues, including the environmental and climate change agendas of both sides, as well as advancing the interests of Māori, women entrepreneurs and small businesses.

However, the latest offer from the UK to improve access to the British market for NZ agricultural exporters was still short of what was required for a deal to be concluded.

“We still have a significant amount of work to ensure the market access outcomes, particularly for agriculture, reflect the ambition we have jointly set … for an ambitious, comprehensive deal that removes tariffs,” he said.

Stephen Jacobi of the International Business Forum, representing some of NZ’s biggest primary exporters, including Fonterra, Zespri and meat exporter ANZCO, says the progress made to date would count for nothing if the UK refused to substantially improve market access for NZ exporters.

“Trade negotiations are successful when they lead to more trade under better trade rules,” Jacobi said. 

“That depends on opening markets by eliminating tariffs and non-tariff barriers.

“The work to broaden inclusion and address sustainability and other important issues of mutual interest stems from there.”

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