Australia's policies and trade agreements

Australia’s policies regarding free trade and protection

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• SEE Reasons for protection
• Over the past 30 years, the Australian Government has reduced many protective barriers on Australian industries
  • such as manufacturing
• in 1973 there was a ==25%== unilateral reduction of protectionist policies
  • aimed to promote structural change to increase efficiency, productivity, and competition in the Australian economy.
• from 1995-2018 : large decrease in average tariff level
  • from 9% to 0.8%

Australia’s trade agreements

Bilateral Agreements

• involves: 2 economies
• Australia-US Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA)
  • covers
    • investment,
    • government contracts,
    • telecommunications,
    • intellectual property rights,
    • and the environment.
  • The US is Australia’s third largest trading partner.
  • Tariffs on all goods have been eliminated since 2015.
• China-Australia Free Trade Agreement (ChAFTA)
  • expected to further promote trade with China.

Multilateral Agreements

• involves: > 2 economies
• AANZFTA
  • (ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement)
    • AANZFTA also includes southeast asia (ASEAN) countries
• APEC
  • (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum)