Australian farmers and business leaders yesterday broadly welcomed a proposed free trade agreement with China but a union leader slammed the decision to start talks as based on a fiction.
The two sides on Monday night signed a memorandum of understanding during a visit by Prime Minister John Howard to Beijing, paving the way for the start of negotiations on an agreement.
The Australian Industry Group said China had already achieved a major goal even before talks start, after Australia granted it market economy status. The status is crucial for China's WTO undertakings as it will give Beijing a better basis to negotiate trade disputes.
But Australian Manufacturing Workers Union national secretary Doug Cameron said such a status was pure fiction. Cameron said Beijing controlled and intervened in every aspect of its economy and had a series of provincial non-tariff barriers to protect and promote its industries.
"Workers have no bargaining rights. The country has no human rights, poor environmental standards and a diabolical health and safety system," he said.
China represents a threat to living standards and job security worldwide, Cameron said.
The National Farmers' Federation was more upbeat, saying farmers and agricultural exporters stand to gain. Federation president Peter Corish said Australia must concentrate on gaining free access for all agricultural goods.
Australian agricultural exports to China were worth A$2.4 billion dollars (US$1.8 billion) last year, only a very small percentage of the total Chinese agricultural market.
Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive Peter Hendy said a deal would put Australia in a unique position -- having free trade agreements with two of the world's major economic powerhouses, China and the US.
UNCERTAINTIES: Exports surged 34.1% and private investment grew 7.03% to outpace expectations in the first half, although US tariffs could stall momentum The Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) yesterday raised its GDP growth forecast to 3.05 percent this year on a robust first-half performance, but warned that US tariff threats and external uncertainty could stall momentum in the second half of the year. “The first half proved exceptionally strong, allowing room for optimism,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said. “But the growth momentum may slow moving forward due to US tariffs.” The tariff threat poses definite downside risks, although the scale of the impact remains unclear given the unpredictability of US President Donald Trump’s policies, Lien said. Despite the headwinds, Taiwan is likely
When Lika Megreladze was a child, life in her native western Georgian region of Guria revolved around tea. Her mother worked for decades as a scientist at the Soviet Union’s Institute of Tea and Subtropical Crops in the village of Anaseuli, Georgia, perfecting cultivation methods for a Georgian tea industry that supplied the bulk of the vast communist state’s brews. “When I was a child, this was only my mum’s workplace. Only later I realized that it was something big,” she said. Now, the institute lies abandoned. Yellowed papers are strewn around its decaying corridors, and a statue of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin
READY TO BUY: Shortly after Nvidia announced the approval, Chinese firms scrambled to order the H20 GPUs, which the company must send to the US government for approval Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) late on Monday said the technology giant has won approval from US President Donald Trump’s administration to sell its advanced H20 graphics processing units (GPUs) used to develop artificial intelligence (AI) to China. The news came in a company blog post late on Monday and Huang also spoke about the coup on China’s state-run China Global Television Network in remarks shown on X. “The US government has assured Nvidia that licenses will be granted, and Nvidia hopes to start deliveries soon,” the post said. “Today, I’m announcing that the US government has approved for us
UNIFYING OPPOSITION: Numerous companies have registered complaints over the potential levies, bringing together rival automakers in voicing their reservations US President Donald Trump is readying plans for industry-specific tariffs to kick in alongside his country-by-country duties in two weeks, ramping up his push to reshape the US’ standing in the global trading system by penalizing purchases from abroad. Administration officials could release details of Trump’s planned 50 percent duty on copper in the days before they are set to take effect on Friday next week, a person familiar with the matter said. That is the same date Trump’s “reciprocal” levies on products from more than 100 nations are slated to begin. Trump on Tuesday said that he is likely to impose tariffs
RSS