Japan, Australia agree to work for early FTA deals+

SYDNEY, Feb. 11 Kyodo -
Japan and Australia agreed Friday to work on striking deals at an early date
through ongoing thorny negotiations over a bilateral free trade agreement
during meetings involving their trade ministers as well as Australian Prime
Minister Julia Gillard, Japanese officials said.
Gillard said during a meeting with visiting Japanese trade minister Banri
Kaieda that she is arranging to visit Japan in late April to discuss the trade
issue, the officials said.
Kaieda and his Australian counterpart Craig Emerson in a separate meeting
recognized that the two countries are faced with ''challenges to be overcome''
and thus need to make more efforts over negotiations over the issue of
eliminating tariffs on farm products, a sticking point in the bilateral talks.
During their meeting in Sydney, the first bilateral trade ministerial talks
since 2009, Emerson briefed Kaieda on the latest developments in negotiations
involving Australia and eight other countries over a TPP agreement.
Kaieda told Emerson of Japan's policy that the country will decide by around
June whether to join the nine countries in the negotiations over the TPP.
Toward that end Japan will implement measures to deal with issues related to
agricultural products, Kaieda said.
Kaieda and Emerson met a day after the two countries finished the latest round
of working-level free trade negotiations in Tokyo, which took place for the
first time in 10 months, with little progress.
The course of bilateral free trade talks with Australia could affect Japan's
decision regarding whether to join the TPP negotiations, which are believed to
be pursuing a higher level of trade liberalization than seen in current
bilateral FTAs, such as by requiring member economies in principle to scrap all
tariffs.
The TPP negotiations, which have been built around a regional free trade
agreement that took effect in 2006 among Brunei, Chile, New Zealand and
Singapore, are under way to expand the framework to include five other
Asia-Pacific countries.
The Japanese government has been faced with strong opposition from domestic
farmers who fear they may be hard hit by an influx of cheap agricultural
imports if Japan joins the high-level pact.
Kaieda also met with Martin Ferguson, minister for resources and energy, and
confirmed the two countries will cooperate so Australia can stably supply
natural resources such as rare earth minerals and uranium to Japan.
Kaieda is scheduled to leave Australia on Saturday.
==Kyodo
2011-02-11 23:01:38


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