China, Australia set to announce grand FTA

[TaiShang]

Australia and China are set to announce an ambitious second, multi-billion dollar trade deal within a week, negotiations for which has taken almost a decade.


The two sides are aiming to iron out differences to reach an agreement to lift exports and cut the price of some consumer goods by next week. Prime Minister Tony Abbott is in Beijing to attend the APEC Leaders meet that begins on Monday.

Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said on Monday she was ” optimistic” that a deal will come to fruition in the coming days.

“It’s looking very positive,” Bishop told Fairfax Media. “(Trade minister) Andrew Robb assures me that the areas of negotiation have narrowed significantly, so we are quite optimistic, but there’s not an agreement until everything’s agreed. ”

“They’re continuing to negotiate and I believe that some considerable progress has been made of recent days, so we will obviously push for as early an agreement as we’re able to get,” she added.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Chinese President Xi Jinping will finalize the new agreement next week at the G20 summit, which is expected to inject in excess of $15 billion into Australia’s economy over the next decade.

Tariffs will be removed from Australia’s biggest mineral and energy exports as a result of the new deal, while food producers will benefit from an increase in horticulture exports.

Australian legal and financial firms will also have increased access to Chinese markets and, in turn, Chinese investors will have a greater influence on the Australian share market due to relaxed investment rules.

Earlier last month, Beijing said it was imposing import tariffs on coal, an announcement that would hit Australian producers of the commodity the hardest. The move is expected to be negotiated during final rounds of discussions on the China-Australia FTA. China is one of the top buyers of Australian coal.

Australia-China bilateral trade exceeded a whopping $150 billion in the last financial year. Canberra’s trade with New Delhi, at $15 billion pales in comparison.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and India Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address the Australian parliament in Canberra when they come to attend the G20 leaders’ summit in November.

Australia is also set to export one million live cattle to China each year in a deal worth more than 1 billion Australian dollars ($860 million). The new deal signed last week will set China as the biggest export market for Australian live cattle.

The Australian economy slowed in the second quarter with gross domestic product (GDP) rising a weak 0.5 per cent. The economy is struggling with the winding down of a decade-long boom in mining investment.

Australia has placed great premium on closer ties with China and India over the last few years.

China, Australia set to announce grand FTA | The BRICS Post

 

[Kolaps]

All Australian hate China.

The anti-China news are everyday broadcasted in Australia.

A lot of Chinese Australian hate of being Chinese too there.


Basically FTA between China-Australia is superficial only.

 

[kyle Chiang]

All Australian hate China.

The anti-China news are everyday broadcasted in Australia.

A lot of Chinese Australian hate of being Chinese too there.


Basically FTA between China-Australia is superficial only.

Are you sour people come from PTT?

Hello,byebye.

 

[TaiShang]

Australia on track for China free trade agreement

• THE AUSTRALIAN
• SEPTEMBER 15, 2014 12:00AM

Tony Abbott and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Source: News Corp Australia

AUSTRALIA is on track to sign a free-trade agreement with China at about the time of the G20 meeting in Brisbane, after the latest round of negotiations left senior ministers believing the deal can be clinched by the end of the year.

Tony Abbott and Chinese President Xi Xinping are due to meet twice in November, when a deal could be signed. They will meet at the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum in Beijing and in Australia, where Mr Xi will attend the G20 and address parliament.

Trade Minister Andrew Robb said “solid progress’’ had been made at formal negotiations at the start of this month. But the Chinese were tough negotiators and there was a lot of work still to do. Australia continues to push to cut barriers to entry to the Chinese market for agriculture and services. China wants improved investment access, tariff reductions on household items such as electronics, and gains on people movements to Australia. However, this is likely to be within existing visa frameworks in areas of genuine skills shortage.

Australia will offer China the same $1.078 billion foreign-investment screening threshold for private investment as that given to South Korea, Japan, the US and New Zealand. T

The same $15 million threshold will apply to investment in agricultural land, and $53m for agribusiness, as was included in the Japanese and South Korean deals.

Mr Robb said that after almost a decade of negotiations he believed there was sufficient political will on both sides to finally conclude them. But there were no guarantees and the “business end’’ of trade negotiations was always the toughest. It was time to have the courage to make decisions and further delays would only exacerbate the advantages of competitors such as New Zealand, he said.

Joe Hockey also expressed confidence about a trade agreement, based on talks with Chinese Finance Minister Lou Jiwei and the governor of the People’s Bank of China, Zhou Xiaochuan.

Also on the agenda are more talks this week towards a final agreement to allow direct trading of the Chinese yuan in an Australian foreign-exchange hub.

With the New Zealand dairy industry increasing its revenue by $3.7bn to the end of last year, since completing its free-trade agreement and improving dairy access, compared with a $173m increase for Australian dairy farmers, the government is facing calls to secure significant gains in agricultural access.

“If the government is serious about agriculture being a pillar of the economy, and if in fact agriculture is a core reason why governments complete trade agreements, then the results will be in the China pudding,’’ National Farmers Federation president Brent Finlay said.

Mr Robb will tell the Dairy Australian Investment Forum in Melbourne today that Australian dairy exports are approaching a value of $500m and dairy is Australia’s strongest growth market in China. But he will argue that dairy is much more dominant in the New Zealand economy and Australia’s export profile is more diverse.

 

[xdrive]

All Australian hate China.

The anti-China news are everyday broadcasted in Australia.

A lot of Chinese Australian hate of being Chinese too there.


Basically FTA between China-Australia is superficial only.

Sorry, but nothing you said is true at all.