Seize historic opportunities in the FTA: Create a brilliant future of China-Australia commercial relations

On June 17, 2015, the much-anticipated China-Australia Free Trade Agreement was formally signed in Canberra, Australia. It is a significant event in China-Australia relations. Chinese and Australian leaders were fully committed to the FTA negotiations. President Xi Jinping reached an important consensus with his Australian counterpart on speeding up the negotiations and signing the FTA agreement at an early date. Premier Li Keqiang personally pushed the negotiation process forward. As Chinese and Australian leaders pointed out in their congratulatory messages, China-Australia Free Trade Agreement, once signed, will provide a higher platform and stronger institutional safeguards for closer, complementary and win-win cooperation. It will help promote the economic integration process in the Asia-Pacific region as well as deeper integration and common development of the Asia-Pacific economies.

High-level Opening-up Will Unleash New Dividends

China-Australia Free Trade Agreement is one of the most progressive FTAs in trade and investment liberalization either has ever signed. China and Australia have made high-level commitments to each other on trade in goods, trade in services, investment and rules, meeting the objective proposed by Chinese and Australian leaders for a comprehensive and high-standard agreement with balanced interests. The signing of the agreement is an active response to the needs of close and robust commercial relations between China-Australia. It will take China-Australia business partnership to new heights and bring huge benefits to industries and consumers in the two countries.

A more open environment for market access. Compared with the liberalization level of around 90% in FTAs in general, China-Australia FTA shows a substantially higher level of openness in trade in goods. At the end of the staging period, 100% of Australian products to China in terms of both tariff lines and trade volume will enjoy duty-free treatment, and close to 97% of Chinese products to Australia in terms of tariff lines and 97% of trade volume will be duty-free. This means that consumers will have access to more high-quality agricultural, energy, mineral and finished industrial goods imported from the other country at lower prices. On the investment front, the two countries will accord MFN treatment to each other, open wider the services sector, and significantly lower the threshold for investment review. Such substantive measures will boost bilateral cooperation in a wide range of sectors, from infrastructure, energy and resources, to finance, tourism and agriculture, renewing the impetus for bilateral trade and economic relations.