detail of the texts, a formal signing and the passage of legislation in the two countries Parliaments likely to take up most of 2022, the UK’s trade representative Colin Leeman told the club this week.An Agreement in Principle has been reached he said, with much fanfare from the politicians from both countries. The NZ/UK FTA was agreed in October following an agreement between the UK and Australia in June.
The current agreement liberalises agricultural trade over 15 years; agreement in itself is a breakthrough, the timetable is rather less so. Trade in services was liberalised more quickly; mutual recognition of professional qualifications, getting business and intra-company transfers were all made easier.
Mr Leeman said the agreement was important to both countries. The UK was looking for high quality trade partners now that it had left the EU and would like to join the CPTPP as a way of expanding its trade relationships.
For New Zealand, the agreement was important because, like many other countries, it was looking for alternatives to trade with China, and the UK was one of those opportunities.
Asked about the mood in the UK now that Brexit was a fact, Mr Leeman said among the Remainers there was despair at what had happened, but also a mood of “we just have to make this work.”
An example of that was the agreement on the movement of goods between Northern Ireland (which was part of the UK) and Eire which was in the EU. A workable set of arrangements was in place which avoided a ‘hard’ border on the island of Ireland and kept good flowing between the two parts of the island.