Federated Farmers says the October 21st announcement of a free trade deal between the United Kingdom and New Zealand is great news for consumers and farmers in both countries.
“The United Kingdom is walking the talk when it comes to promising a truly global Britain,” Federated Farmers National President Andrew Hoggard says. “We congratulate the New Zealand team of negotiators, officials and politicians who have tenaciously pursued this deal. The result is impressive. It’s a job well done.”
Federated Farmers has a long history of supporting efforts to free up global trade and it takes every opportunity to get producers in other countries to embrace trade liberalization.
“There has been a worrying trend of growing protectionism for agricultural products since the outbreak of COVID-19. This FTA shows trade liberalisation remains the way forward globally,” Andrew said.
Federated Farmers believes it is difficult to overstate the importance of trade to New Zealand, with the movement of goods and services from and into the country being vital to the country’s generally high standard of living.
“In the past two years we have all been starkly reminded of this as our country has lent heavily on our global exporters to maintain our economy. Since the announcement of an agreement in principle between Australia and the UK in June, we have been hoping that New Zealand gets a deal of our own. Today we got there,” Andrew said on October 21st.
The in-principal FTA will result in the full liberalisation of all trade between New Zealand and the United Kingdom. The deal will involve transition periods for many key agricultural goods, some key details are:
- Cheese to be fully liberalised after 5 years, with a duty free transitional quota of 24,000 tonnes increasing to 48,000 tonnes
- Butter to be fully liberalised after 5 years, with a duty free transitional quota of 7,000 tonnes increasing to 15,000 tonnes
- Beef to be fully liberalised after 15 years, with a duty free transitional volume of 12,000 tonnes increasing to 60,000 tonnes
- Sheep meat to be fully liberalised after 15 years, with a duty free transitional quota of 35,000 tonnes increasing to 50,000 tonnes
- Apples will be fully liberalised after 3 years, with a seasonal transitional quota of 20,000 tonnes.
- Vegetable seeds for sowing will be fully liberalised after entry into force
- Onions will be fully liberalised after entry into force
- Wine will be fully liberalised after entry into force
“And now our attention will turn on the European Union. Feds would like to see EU match this ambition in its FTA negotiations with New Zealand,” Andrew said.
