New Zealand-China Free Trade Agreement

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The New Zealand-China Free Trade Agreement is a bilateral free trade agreement between the People's Republic of China and New Zealand . The agreement was signed in April 2008 and has an implementation period of 12 years until it will come into full effect in 2019.

history

With Great Britain's accession (1973) to the European Community (EC) (now the EU ) and the threatened loss of the country's most important sales market, New Zealand began a process of political and economic reorientation towards Asia in the early 1970s. It all started with the Labor government under Prime Minister Norman Kirk with the establishment of diplomatic relations with China in December 1972.

In August 1997, New Zealand concluded its first bilateral agreement with China, and was so since the founding of the World Trade Organization (WTO) ( English :. World Trade Organization ) in 1995, the first Western country that an agreement with China on the basis of WTO Contracts came.

This was the first step towards the fourth-first milestones ( four first milestones ), as New Zealand likes to describe the development of economic relations with China today. Furthermore, New Zealand claims for himself to have been the first developed country with April 2004 that China had recognized as significant a market economy, and in November 2004 as the first in the negotiations of a free trade agreement (FTA) ( Engl . Free Trade Agreement ) to enter with China.

The fourth milestone should have been the New Zealand-China Free Trade Agreement itself, which was signed on April 7, 2008 by New Zealand's Minister of Trade Phil Goff and his Chinese counterpart Chen Deming in the presence of New Zealand's Prime Minister Helen Clark and China's President Hú Jǐntāo in the Great Hall of the People was signed in Beijing , and came into effect on October 1, 2008 through ratification by the New Zealand Parliament .

Advantage for New Zealand (government perspective)

On October 1, 2009, the anniversary of the entry into force of the agreement, the Minister of Trade , Tim Groser , emphasized the importance of the agreement for New Zealand through China, which is now New Zealand's third largest economic partner . A 23 percent growth in import-export would have exceeded NZ $ 10 billion in volume  and New Zealand's exports to China would have increased by 60%.

Critic of the Agreement

In addition to the rejection of the agreement by the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand , which is represented in parliament, and the Māori Party , other critics spoke up. The general fears that were expressed were summarized by the spokesman for Global Peace and Justice Auckland (GPJA), John Minto, in an article in the New Zealand Herald on April 10, 2008. Since New Zealand already had a foreign trade deficit with China of NZ $ 2 billion in 2005 - and the trend is rising - before the conclusion of the Agreement  , and around 16 jobs would be lost for every million dollars imported from China, he assumed a loss of 50,000 Jobs from China's imports. He also calculated a loss of about 20,000 jobs in manufacturing, with a migration to poorly paid service jobs. He also criticized the agreement to support child labor in China and the non-compliance with labor standards.

Quote: "The real winners from these free trade deals won't be the Kiwi shopper who pays slightly less for a shirt or the farmer who sells a bit more milk. The real winners will be the multinational corporations and Asian entrepreneurs who make their money off the backs of children, political prisoners and sweatshop labor. "

( German : "The real winners of these free trade agreements will not be the kiwi buyer who pays a little less for a shirt or the farmer who sells a little more milk. The real winners will be the multinational corporations and Asian entrepreneurs who sell you Making money on the backs of children, political prisoners and workers in exploitation industries. " )

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Tim Groser : New Zealand-China FTA: One-year on . In: Beehive . New Zealand Government , October 1, 2009, archived from the original on May 22, 2010 ; accessed on May 5, 2019 (English, original website no longer available).
  2. ^ A b John Minto: PM's backsliding delivers a raw deal . The New Zealand Herald , accessed August 8, 2010 .