The Australian Trade and Investment Commission, Austrade has conducted its 100th Free Trade Agreement (FTA) information seminar, three years after launching the program.
The Agancy said that since the initial 2015 event which focused on Australia’s historic FTAs with China, Japan and Korea, it had helped almost 4,000 businesses understand the great export opportunities the agreements provided.
“Following the signing of the Peru–Australia Free Trade Agreement [PAFTA] in February and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership [TPP-11] last month, the focus of these seminars is broadening,” Austrade said in a statement.
It said its Trade Commissioners to Peru and Mexico attended the 100th FTA seminar on the Gold Coast, joined by Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade senior officials responsible for trade negotiations.
“In 2016, more than 80 per cent of eligible products (by value) were benefiting from our North Asia FTAs,” Austrade said.
It said that in the case of Japan, almost 96 per cent of eligible products exported to Japan made use of preferential access in 2017.
“Contributing to the high utilisation rate of our trade agreements have been our FTA seminars, held across Australia, including in regional locations ranging from Kununurra in Western Australia to Sale in Victoria, Launceston in Tasmania and Mackay in Queensland,” it said.
