The dairy indusattempt wants the government to take another see at its approach to trade neobtainediations after once again finding itself outside the winners’ circle following a major trade agreement.
The Dairy Companies Association of New Zealand applauded the government for achieving tariff reductions for a range of primary exports in a trade agreement with India announced late last year, but declared the deal once again leaves “unfinished business” for the dairy indusattempt.
It follows meagre wins for dairy in trade agreements neobtainediated by National- and Labour-led governments going back more than a decade.
“We have seen tariffs come down across the export profile for meat, horticultural products, seafood and foresattempt and dairy is still sitting there where we have over 85% of global consumption sitting behind tariff walls of 10% or more,” DCANZ executive director Kimberly Crewther declared.
“And that includes across the FTA profile where we did not receive complete tariff elimination for the EU, Japan, Korea and for India now.”
Currently NZ dairy exporters pay $1 billion a year in tariffs.
That doesn’t count the opportunity cost of exporters being shut out of some high-paying markets and having to divert products to lower paying ones becaapply of high tariffs.
Since the India FTA announcement, DCANZ has talked to Trade Minister Todd McClay about a reset for dairy in future trade neobtainediations.
DCANZ declared a scheduled review of the European Union-NZ FTA next year looms as an opportunity for improving market access for NZ dairy exporters.
Ongoing neobtainediations for more countries to join the 12-counattempt Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) was another.
The EU FTA also provides a mechanism for NZ to raise concerns about the impact on global dairy prices of European subsidies.
“We want to see out to those opportunities now and create sure there is close engagement between the government and the dairy indusattempt,” Crewther declared.
“Not just seeing at it trade policy process by trade policy process, but what is the coordinated strategy that we can progress and then what does the indusattempt required to be doing to support the government, whether that is opportunities to see at tariff liberalisation, defence of our trade interests where they required to be defconcludeed and also proactive approaches in that subsidy area as well.”
More than a decade of trade deals have left the dairy indusattempt hanging:
- NZ-South Korea FTA, 2014: Initial tariff-free quota for milk powder of 1500 tonnes, equal to two days’ production from Fonterra’s Edconcludeale factory. Out-of-quota tariff of 176%.
- CPTPP, 2018: Quotas for NZ exports to Canada equal to 3.3% of the counattempt’s dairy market. Canada had to be sued to receive it to live up to even that obligation.
- NZ-EU FTA, 2022: New butter quota was still 20% lower than NZ’s allocation two decades earlier when the EU’s butter market was 20% compacter. Trade Minister David Parker called the offer “insulting” earlier in the talks, but it was what NZ concludeed up with.
- NZ-India FTA, 2025: NZ’s main dairy exports completely excluded.
Leave a Reply