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EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES
Trade Policy Review of New Zealand
10 & 12 June 2009
New Zealand's Trade Policy Review was held in Geneva on 10 and 12 June 2009, under the auspices of the World Trade Organisation. TPRs are opportunities for WTO members to ask questions about a country's trade policy and related issues. Since its previous TPR in 2003, New Zealand has remained among the more open economies in the world. The European Commission submitted questions along with many other WTO members. WTO Members showed interest in new Zealand's foreign investment policy issues, the scope, impact and future developments of New Zealand's FTAs and other regional trade initiatives, the gap between bound and applied tariffs, conditions for granting tariff concessions, agriculture, dairy and fisheries issues. In its statement, the European Commission focussed on New Zealand's sanitary & phyto-sanitary measures, insufficient protection of geographical indications, state trading arrangements in agriculture and procurement.
For the TPR, please see: http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/tpr_e/tp316_e.htm
Below is the EC statement.
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Statement
EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES
Trade Policy Review of New Zealand
10 & 12 June 2009
Mr Chairman,
The EC is pleased to participate in the fourth Trade Policy Review of New Zealand. I would like to extend a warm welcome to Ambassador Walker, and to the other members of the New Zealand Delegation. I would also like to take the opportunity to thank the WTO Secretariat and the New Zealand Government for their reports which lay an important foundation for the review. Mr. Martin Glass has made very pertinent remarks and provided useful insight into the trade policies and practices of New Zealand, and we thank him for his very useful contribution.
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The EC and New Zealand have developed strong relations. It is, for example, worth mentioning that the EC has been New Zealand's second trading partner (after Australia) since 1990. In 2008, total trade amounted to almost 6 billion euro; New Zealand 's exports to the EC consisting mostly of agricultural products. The EC remains to be one of the leading investors in New Zealand accounting for 10.2% of total FDI in New Zealand in 2007, ranking third after Australia and United States . New Zealand states in its own report that it maintains an open framework for foreign investment, and confirms that there are no sectors from which FDI is fully excluded. [As New Zealand has referred to in its presentation], there is an on-going review of the Overseas Investment Act, and we would be interested in learning more about the changes and improvements this review will bring about.
The EC believes that economic development should go hand in hand with social development. Striking the right balance between further economic and social development, as well as environmental protection, is indeed a great challenge for all of us. Trade policy in particular should contribute to more sustainable production patterns rather than to lower standards, both at home and abroad. We are pleased to see that New Zealand has paid special attention to the link between trade policies and sustainable development in its government report prepared for this meeting. We are looking forward to learning more about the action plan that New Zealand is pursuing towards this endeavour.
The EC has also taken good note of New Zealand's interest in promoting the TPRM to highlight the relationship between trade and development and how the trade policies and practices of Members contribute to sustainable economic development. Indeed, the TPRM can serve to better monitor the global coherence of Member's trade policies in the context of their development objectives. We invite New Zealand to actively participate in the next re-appraisal of the TPRM in order to pursue this initiative and any others that would make the TPR a more useful and comprehensive mechanism.
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New Zealand is an example of a small economy that has developed its great potential thanks to its strong support to the multilateral trading system and its firm commitment to maintain an open trade regime. However, it is obvious that not everything always goes as smoothly as it could and should. The documentation provided for today's meeting has helped identify a number of areas where further improvements to New Zealand 's policies and practices could be to the benefit of both New Zealand itself and all of us other WTO Members.
We have submitted detailed questions on a number of measures and sectors and look forward to New Zealand 's comments and replies. Today, I would thus like to limit myself to four issues where we believe further efforts from New Zealand could significantly enhance trade:
The first issue relates to the protection of Geographical Indications. I would like to highlight that New Zealand 's legislation does not provide for additional protection for geographical indications for wines and spirits. The Geographical indications Act of 1994 has been repealed while the Geographical indications (Wines and Spirits) Registration Act of 2006 has not yet come into force. In our view, this lack of protection is not in compliance with Article 23 of the TRIPS Agreement. Today, we would very much appreciate New Zealand 's clear indications on how it plans to overcome this shortcoming and to implement the outstanding legislation to adequately protect geographical indications.
My second point relates to agriculture. We note that state-trading arrangements have been maintained for exports of some agricultural products and we are interested in the underlying reasons for maintaining those arrangements. Furthermore, we would encourage New Zealand to complete its notification obligations on all state-trading activities.
Thirdly, I would like to raise some concerns regarding SPS measures. Here, New Zealand should establish fair, non-discriminatory and transparent rules for agricultural imports, aligning its SPS measures with international guidelines. For example, through its bio-security policy, New Zealand has effectively restricted the importation of most non-pasteurised cheese, fresh eggs and live poultry. In addition, stringent regulations impede importing meat products. We acknowledge efforts made in some products, such as non-pasteurised cheese, and we thus hope that New Zealand will continue working in that direction. Furthermore, we would like to encourage New Zealand to accelerate the process of developing import health standards.
Last but not least, we very much welcome the fact that New Zealand has become an observer of the WTO plurilateral agreement on Government Procurement (GPA) since last December 2008. We encourage New Zealand to swiftly develop a general legislation on public procurement, including guidelines for sub-central agencies. We hope that pursuing transparent, non-discriminatory and open government procurement will be one of the key objectives of New Zealand in the immediate future.
Chairman, I would like to thank you and the delegation from New Zealand for your kind attention.
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