Speech by John Adank, NZ

� The closer integration of the ANZ economies was an important pre-requisite
to the wider ANZ push into Asia. This took some time to commence,
however, and for over a decade and a half after the conclusion of CER neither
we nor Australia concluded substantive FTAs with Asian countries. During
this period of course Mexico was very much preoccupied with the FTA
arrangements in its own immediate neighbourhood under NAFTA. So we had
to play catch-up.
ANZ Integration with ASEAN
� But we eventually began this process. And the beginning of all of this was the
decision taken by Singapore and New Zealand to negotiate an FTA – called a
Closer Economic partnership - which was concluded in 2001. It’s fair to say
that some wondered at the time what was the point of this given that both NZ
and Singapore were very open economies with very few real trade barriers.
� But the strategic significant of this initiative should not be underestimated. For
it provided the first step in what would eventually see the deeper integration of
the ANZ CER relationship with ASEAN through the conclusion of a number of
additional bilateral and plurilateral agreements involving ASEAN members.
This includes in NZ’s case not only bilateral agreements with Thailand (2004)
and Malaysia (2010) but also the Pacific-4 Agreement involving NZ, Brunei,
Singapore as well as Chile (2005).
� The most concrete manifestation of CER/ASEAN trade integration is the
ASEAN-Australia-NZ-FTA (AANZFTA) concluded in 2010. This
Agreement extends the original building block of the CER with Australia to
include the 10 economies in South East Asia (ASEAN).
� Collectively, ASEAN is now NZ's third-largest export market for merchandise
goods; one in every eight export dollars is earned in ASEAN; one in five of
New Zealand dairy export dollars earned is in ASEAN. And this is going to
get better as the FTA means within 12 years 99% of NZ's current trade with
Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Viet Nam will be duty free.
� For NZ businesses operating in these markets this is a major advancement in
terms of their market access into these major and growing markets. But
AANZFTA does more than simply address tariff lines for merchandise trade.
One of its key strengths is its comprehensiveness, in that it covers services,
investment and other areas.
� AANZFTA is now firmly established as one of the key building blocks for the
promotion of closer regional economic integration.
� But there are a number of other initiatives that NZ has pursued with other key
Asian economies well beyond our cooperation with ASEAN.
NZ/China FTA