New Zealand and the European Union have concluded negotiations on a major free trade agreement (FTA), which unlocks access to one of the world’s biggest and most lucrative markets, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Trade and Export Growth Minister Damien O’Connor announced today.
- Export revenue to the EU to grow by up to $1.8 billion annually on full implementation.
- Duty-free access on 97% of New Zealand’s current exports to the EU; with over 91% being removed the day the FTA comes into force.
- NZ exporters set to save approx. $110 million per annum on tariff elimination, with $100 million slashed from day one.
- Immediate tariff elimination for all kiwifruit, wine, onions, apples, mānuka honey and manufactured goods, as well as almost all fish and seafood, and other horticulture products.
- New quota opportunities worth over $600m in annual export revenue for dairy and red meat sector once fully implemented, with an eight-fold increase in beef access to the EU market.
- New Zealand service providers able to access EU market on an equivalent basis to local and foreign service providers in a range of sectors including education.
- Once fully implemented, the EU FTA delivers more to NZ GDP than the UK-FTA.
- EU FTA becomes the 5th major trade deal in 5 years, opening new markets for NZ exporters.
“Our EU-NZ FTA is expected to increase the value of New Zealand’s exports to the EU by up to $1.8 billion per year from 2035. For comparison that’s more lucrative than the benefits derived from our recent UK FTA,” Jacinda Ardern said.
“It’s a strategically important and economically beneficial deal that comes at a crucial time in our export led COVID-19 recovery.
“It delivers tangible gains for exporters into a restrictive agricultural market. It cuts costs and red tape for exporters and opens up new high value market opportunities and increases our economic resilience through diversifying the markets that we can more freely export into.
“The complete removal of duties on the majority of products New Zealand exports to the EU is a major achievement in a deal that covers market access into 27 European countries.
“This is the fifth Free Trade Agreement the Government has concluded in the past five years and sits alongside upgrades to our existing agreements with Singapore and China. The increase in market access we’ve negotiated means 73.5% of our global exports are now covered by an FTA, up from only around 50 percent when we took office.
“New Zealand exporters offer some of the best products in the world and the Government will keep working alongside industry and business to unlock access and opportunities like those delivered into Europe,” Jacinda Ardern said.
Damien O’Connor, who has spent the week in Brussels negotiating with his counterparts said the deal provided access for products that were previously locked out in the historically difficult to access European market.
“This agreement delivers on what has been a long-standing objective of successive New Zealand governments – an FTA with the European Union, which will help accelerate New Zealand’s economic recovery at a time of global disruption,” Damien O’Connor said.
“The deal provides duty-free access on 97% of the New Zealand’s existing goods trade to the EU within seven years, 91% from day one.
“There are some big wins in here. The EU is the largest export market for New Zealand kiwifruit growers, and the complete removal of tariffs delivers more than $37 million in annual savings on kiwifruit alone from day one.
“For fish and seafood exports, annual tariff savings will reach $20 million a year.
“We’ve fought hard for our dairy and beef exporters and the deal could deliver up to $600 million in additional export revenue if access is used and once the agreement is fully in effect.
“We’ve secured an eight-fold increase in the volume of beef we can export into the EU.
“We have also secured improved access for our butter and cheese producers, some of which will now be able to be trade with the EU for the first time in many years.
“With total savings on tariffs worth $110 million annually, $100 million up front, the deal will make our exports immediately more competitive in the EU market and provides a platform for growth.
“This FTA also helps to level the playing field and creates significant opportunity for more great Kiwi businesses to diversify into this high-value market.
“This is a good news for our services exports too. The deal, will bring the EU services market closer to New Zealand for our entrepreneurs by reducing red tape and making it easier to do business on the ground in a market of nearly 450 million high-value consumers.
“Importantly, the services and investment ‘Most Favoured Nation’ outcome will ensure the FTA remains at the cutting edge, with New Zealand able to receive the benefit of services market access and investment treatment the EU may agree to in future FTAs.
“It also delivers a positive outcome for New Zealand businesses seeking access to EU’s large government procurement market for goods and services worth more than $3 trillion. This deal provides enhanced access to a range of EU procurement opportunities across all levels of government, including new opportunities in healthcare, airports and ports.
“Consistent with our approach to trade negotiations, the agreement contains legally enforceable commitments on climate action, environment and labour standards and gender equality. New Zealand is pleased to be the EU’s first ever FTA partner to conclude such an outcome.
“This agreement reflects the Government’s Trade For All agenda, ensuring this FTA works harder both for our economy and our society. Importantly it preserves the unique status of te Tititi o Waitangi, ensuring the Government’s ability to meet its obligations to Māori. In addition to the inclusion of New Zealand’s Treaty of Waitangi exception, Māori interests were a focus in negotiations and are reflected across the agreement,” Damien O’Connor.
The FTA includes a Māori Trade and Economic Cooperation chapter to enhance the ability for Māori to access the benefits from the FTA, including through the development of business links between Māori and EU enterprises (with a particular emphasis on SMEs), and focusing on science, research and innovation.
The EU is New Zealand’s fourth-largest trading partner with two-way goods and services trade was worth NZ$17.5 billion in for the year to December 2021.
More information, and economic modelling, is available at www.mfat.govt.nz/nzeufta
The draft text of the Agreement will be released in the weeks to come, once it has been prepared for publication.
EU is known for backdoor methods. We have not forgotten the “spreadable butter” slimy ban of butter arguing that spreadable butter is noit butter. Our trade surplus is negative with EU and we will probably be forced to get more weapons over time. What is going to happen under the table matters. Ordinary kiwis will see no benefit other than we will not be able to afford to buy our own food. We need quotas for our own consumption and exports should be allowed only if it is produced beyond our own needs (which is the quota).
The media today are gushing about all the wonderful things we’ll soon be getting. Everyone forgets that trade is a two-way street.
What are we GIVING in return?
It’ll all be done behind the closed doors of the boardrooms at BlackRock and Bielderberg of course, the full terms of the agreement won’t be publicly available, but it must be a really shitty deal if the politicians and media are all so chuffed with it.
Can’t wait.
We need a domestic market for New Zealand / Aotearoa only so that our locally-generated foodstuffs and meds are available at an affordable price!
Since Jancinda has been a good little girl, obedient to the Great Reset, Globalisation, and the WEF, and using NZ as a Beta test for tyranny using ‘plandemics’ as the tool for doing just that, she was granted the FTA for complying with the NWO Agenda.
Otherwise, nothing would have happened.
But this will make Jabcinda look viable for the next el-ection, but it is important to remember that IF she had stood up for our sovereignty, this FTA probably would never have happened.
Am I writing this piece in such a way as to make me a ‘terrorist’ due to the above concerns? Laws that were passed just a few days ago and reported on by Stuff yesterday (ie ‘Proud Boys’, etc.) which were signed into law secretly and quietly without the public knowing right away (see Snordster’s ‘The Roach Motel at the End of the Universe’ on YouTube).
Entering opinion-pieces / commentaries certainly may only serve to mark me and other patriotic Kiwis as just that, as similar groups have been targeted overseas as well.
Can we all see the trends here???? Who will be next??? Are the Gangs are being practiced on for something bigger with the recent raids?
And of course, people will continue to die due to mRNA bio-weapon vaccines, from diseases that a destroyed and compromised immune system that can’t handle the flu anymore, and will continue to ‘mandate’ (illegally, I might add…) more jabs, masking, lock-downs from time to time, and the propaganda flowing from the mouths of ‘news presenters’…!
This has pissed off Russia with what may be great effect, but also China first and foremost.
Perhaps the Pacific Leaders are aware of some intel that the general public isn’t, re China (now close to completing their second Super-Aircraft Carrier and 80th Submarine). Perhaps leaked intel has come directly from Chinese Intelligence Officer who has seen past the propaganda and rhetoric to realise the nuclear threat to all of humanity…
If goods begin to flow to & fro between NZ and the EU, if we think that the supply lines are disrupted now, wait until those vessels transporting NZ goods to the EU & vice-versa end up on the bottom due to being torpedoed, attacked with ship-borne missiles, etc.
We can now look forward to seeing more periscopes offshore, aircraft that appear from over the horizon launched by an Aircraft Carrier, and Taiwan-styled Chinese harassment in our airspace.
New Zealand should declare itself a Neutral Nation, re-vamp the NZDF to be inline and similar to the Swiss Ministry of Defence, and begin mandatory Military reserve and Inactive Reserve training for all age 18 and over, with the Air Force, Army and Sea Cadet Training beginning at age 15 during 1 Holiday School Break per year (2 weeks per annum) at which time the Cadets rotate to the Army Cadets for one year, Then to the Sea Cadets for the next year, ending with the Air Cadets for the third year.
This way everyone has a broad range of Basic Military Training before entering Reserve Service with the Branch of Service they are most qualified in. & ALL will have been trained on firearms use, and issued Firearms Licences upon completion of 2 Cadet Spheres at age 16!
This is essential for Home Defence in the event of an invasion…!
Don’t think for a minute that we’re immune from such a scenario! The beaches of eastern South Island, Tauranga, 90 Mile Beach are all idyllic landing points for troop insertions by landing craft and airborne paratroopers.
The past 2 PM’s have this information because I SENT IT TO THEM!!
Result; confiscations of certain firearms, their parts, and revocations of Firearms Licence Endorsements due to a Mossad Ops using an MK-ULTRA Mind Control patsy who previously served with the Ukrainian Nazis (AZOV ) prior to the attack on the Mosques in Chch. (See the Gordon Duff article exposing this at the Public Intelligence Blog, and MK-ULTRA).
I wonder about the hidden costs of this deal. I just hope that it will not be paid for by our young men having to once again fight in a European war.
Nope, not doing it ever. Nor is my young son.
They can withhold their digital passports and give me all the bad social credit scores they want, hell they can throw me in prison, I don’t care.
I’m not picking up a rifle to murder strangers in a foreign land in the name of a bunch of criminal bureaucrats who hate me and spent the last two years trying to ruin my life. I won’t be dying for them either.
Regardless of how much you love your country or it’s people (whoever they are) joining a military in THIS day and age is the dumbest possible thing a person can do. ALL governments are corrupt, and they now have drones and smart bombs and all manner of terrifying technology these days that renders a traditional standing army almost obsolete – you are basically just signing up to be cannon fodder.
Let all the suits in Wellington who are more concerned with Ukraine than NZ strap on some combat gear, pickup a rifle and head off to fight Putin themselves. The rest of us will be better off without them.