Review of New Zealand's Free Trade Progress

"New Zealand is on track to achieving the Bogor Goals and for that we commend them" said Brunei's Senior APEC Official, Lim Jock Hoi.

The statement was made in summing up the discussion of New Zealand's performance which took place during an APEC meeting in Phuket, Thailand.

"It would only be beneficial for every APEC economy to learn from New Zealand, monitor its reform progress, and ideally apply these lessons to their own economies, in the expectation that that this will bring about economic prosperity for the whole APEC region", said Lim Jock Hoi.

The peer review of New Zealand's Individual Action Plan, which sets out progress towards achieving the "Bogor Goals" of free and open trade and investment within the APEC region by the year 2010, was based around an independent report prepared by Dr. Junsok Yang, Professor of Law and Economics at the Catholic University of Korea.

Dr. Yang said as an economy that has already undertaken significant trade reforms New Zealand is in a strong position to deal with changes in the global economy.

"Market-oriented reforms allow a more flexible economy, which allows small open economies such as New Zealand to weather domestic and foreign shocks," Dr. Yang said in the Report.

"New Zealand has been one of the leaders in instituting market friendly and market opening reforms, ever since the financial crisis of 1984, when the reforms played a crucial part in New Zealand's recovery from that financial crisis.

Dr. Yang noted however that while reforms had been rapid from 1985 to 1994, they have been slower in recent years.

"Since 2000, New Zealand seems to be in a period of careful consideration and stocktaking of past reforms, including those related to market liberalization. Due to the strength and the wide-ranging nature of New Zealand's reforms in the past twenty years, the desire for such stocktaking is understandable."

In the area of tariffs Dr. Yang said that compared with most other APEC economies "New Zealand on the whole, maintains low average applied tariff rates."

"New Zealand's overall simple applied tariff rate is 3.7%, and it maintains an extensive set of tariff preferences for developing countries and least developed countries under its GSP program."

"New Zealand maintains transparency in its tariff regime through advance notices on its website and Customs News and Information Releases. Information on tariff rates is accessible through the Internet."

"In the area of non-tariff barriers (NTBs), New Zealand has almost completely achieved the Bogor Goals already, and mostly unilaterally."

On the issue of government procurement of goods and services, the report found that the New Zealand's government procurement system is generally open, and on track to achieving the Bogor Goals.

"Central government procurement is already liberalized and open, while local government procurement is largely non-discriminatory, though limited measures of price preferences exist in some local governments."

"The devolved nature of New Zealand's government means that responsibility for procurement is devolved to individual ministries and departments."

Trade with APEC member economies form about 73% of New Zealand's total exports, and about 72% of New Zealand's total imports.

New Zealand believes that comprehensive, open Free Trade Agreements can act as valuable building blocks toward the Bogor Goals, and has participated actively in the APEC discussions on the role of FTAs. However, as with most other WTO members, New Zealand gives its highest priority to the WTO-based multilateral system, including the current negotiations under the Doha Development Agenda.

APEC's Bogor Goals were set at the meeting of APEC Leaders in Bogor, Indonesia, in 1994 and set the target of achieving free and open trade and investment in the Asia-Pacific Region by the year 2010 for industrialised economies and 2020 for developing economies.

The New Zealand 'Individual Action Plan Study Report' and a Fact Sheet on the role and objectives of Individual Action Plan peer reviews are now available.