Australia, NZ prioritize ASEAN trade deal

Australia, NZ prioritize ASEAN trade deal

AUCKLAND (Reuters): Australian and New Zealand trade ministers on Thursday set as a priority the extension of their countries' existing free trade area to include Southeast Asia.

"We are renewing our commitments to engage with ASEAN countries with the objective of securing agreement to commence negotiations on a free trade area of mutual benefit for all parties," the ministers said in a joint statement released after their annual bilateral meeting in Auckland.

New Zealand and Australia have an existing agreement on free trade, called Closer Economic Relations (CER) and New Zealand is finalizing a similar bilateral arrangement with Singapore.

New Zealand and Australia would co-operate closely in the run up to a meeting between CER and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) ministers in Thailand on October 5-7, the ministers said.

ASEAN has its own free trade area, AFTA, under which ASEAN members -- Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam -- have agreed to cut tariffs to 0.5 percent by 2003.

An Australian study released in July found gains of US$48.1 billion would flow from a CER/AFTA free trade area.

New Zealand Trade Minister Jim Sutton said bilateral issues between New Zealand and Australia were becoming less of a focus between the two neighbors -- although work is under way to align business laws, and sign an open skies aviation agreement.

"The emphasis increasingly is on how we, as two very closely integrated economies, can maximize the advantage of our attractiveness to the rest of the world. What we can do together now consumes much of our energy rather than what we can still do between us," Sutton told reporters.