how the tpp benefits australia 2387002015
Senator Bridget Mckenzie’s take on the gains from TPP.
The successful conclusion of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the biggest global trade deal in two decades, will drive employment, economic growth and innovation in Australia, says Bridget McKenzie, the Nationals Senator for Victoria.
Australian businesses, farmers, manufacturers and service providers will benefit from the immense trade opportunities that will now be available in the Asia-Pacific region, which boasts of a burgeoning middle class and is seeing a growing demand for quality products and services.
The 12 countries represented in the TPP together constitute about 40 per cent of global GDP. A third of Australia’s exports of goods and services, at a value of about AU$109 billion, went to destinations in TPP countries in 2014. Nearly 35 per cent of Australia’s services exports, about AU$20 billion in 2014, were accounted for by TPP countries.
By every measure, TPP countries together constitute a very significant trading bloc for Australia.
The pact will bring down both barriers and tariffs to Australian exports of goods, services and investments. “The TPP will eliminate 98 per cent of all tariffs across everything from beef, dairy, wine, sugar, rice, horticulture and seafood through to manufactured goods, resources and energy,” says the senator.
Beef exporters will benefit from the reduction of tariffs on Australian exports of beef to 9 per cent, the elimination of these tariffs in Mexico and Canada within 10 years and the removal of the AUSFTA beef safeguard in the US. Australian sugar exports to the US could touch 400,000 tonnes by 2019-20 after an effective doubling of the access quota into the US, and for the first time in over two decades, Australian rice will reach Japanese shores. Rice tariffs into Mexico will be dismantled.
Australian dairy products, including cheese, will benefit from the elimination of tariffs in Japan, new preferential access worth AU$100 million and new quota access for butter and skimmed milk products. In the US, Australia gets access for 9000 more tonnes of exports of cheese, and removal of tariffs on milk powders and Swiss cheese. Australian dairy gains new, preferential access to the highly protected Canadian market.
Australian cereals, wine and seafood will gain from tariff eliminations across many TPP member countries.
TPP will ensure immediate elimination of tariffs on iron ore, copper and nickel to Peru for the Australian resources and energy sector, and the elimination of tariffs on butanes, propane and liquefied natural gas to Vietnam within seven years.
In financial services, Australian exporters can provide investment advice and portfolio management services to a collective investment scheme and insurance of maritime shipping as well as international commercial aviation and freight.
Mining equipment services and technologies and oilfield service providers will find new opportunities in Mexico, Vietnam and Brunei.
Overall, the TPP will settle international trade and investment standards between its members, making it easy to conduct business in the region by reducing red tape and costs of doing business.
