16
Dec
Australia free trade deal with UK to remove taxes on virtually all exports to Britain
A free trade deal between Australia and Britain will remove taxes on virtually all Australian exports to the United Kingdom.
The FTA will be formally announced by the Australian trade minister, Dan Tehan, and UK high commissioner Vicki Treadell in Adelaide on Friday.
The deal will abolish taxes on 99% of Australian exports worth $10bn and UK imports worth $200m.
The maximum age that people from both countries can apply for working holiday visas of up to three years will be between 30 and 35 years.
The deal will also give Australian agricultural exporters better access to the UK market and help the Australian wine industry, with more than $40m of tariffs removed for bottles entering the UK.
About $725m worth of farming products such as beef, sugar and dairy will not have a duty imposed.
Tehan says it is the most comprehensive and ambitious deal with the UK outside of New Zealand.
“It will strengthen the deep connection between our peoples, with Australians now having similar access to Britain as European nationals, and British nationals having access to Australia similar to our best free trade agreements,” he wrote in an opinion piece published in the Australian newspaper on Friday.
“The Australia-UK FTA is an example to the world that embracing free trade is the best way out of the pandemic.”
The in-principle deal between the two nations was unveiled in June this year, following months of negotiations.
The initial text of the agreement included a request by Britain to enter a trade pact known as the CPTPP between 11 countries including Australia, Canada, Japan and New Zealand.
There were five rounds of negotiations between delegates over the course of a year before the in-principle agreement was reached in June.
The UK is Australia’s eighth largest two-way trading partner worth almost $27bn in 2018.
It is also Australia’s third-largest services trading partner, with Australian service exports valued at $5.5bn and imports totalling $9.2bn in the same year.