Britain yesterday unveiled a major free-trade agreement with Australia as London pursues efforts to strike new deals since leaving the EU.
It follows similar UK trade deals with Japan and the EU following London’s divorce with Brussels.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the latest agreement “marks a new dawn in the UK’s relationship with Australia, underpinned by ... shared history and common values.”
Photo: Reuters
“This is global Britain at its best — looking outwards and striking deals that deepen our alliances and help ensure every part of the country builds back better from the pandemic,” he added in a statement.
Speaking later at a Downing Street press conference alongside Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Johnson said more trade agreements would follow.
“This is ... a prelude to further deals,” Johnson told reporters.
Morrison praised the “foundational partnership” that would strengthen economic links and boost cooperation between the two nations.
British Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs Dominic Raab wrote on Twitter that the deal was “an important stepping stone” in efforts to join a massive free-trade zone in the Indo-Pacific region — the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.
The deal eliminates tariffs on UK exports, with a final agreement in principle to be published in the coming days, the government said.
The UK-Australia trade relationship was worth ￡13.9 billion (US$19.6 billion) last year and would grow under the deal, it added in a statement.
Canberra and London also plan to “intensify cooperation on security, climate change and science and tech,” the UK government said.
The deal eliminates tariffs on imported Australian goods, such as wine, swimwear and confectionery goods, it said.
Going the other way, British products, including cars, Scotch whisky, biscuits and ceramics, would be cheaper to sell in Australia.
It comes after the two addressed issues surrounding the farming sector.
British farmers would be protected by a cap on tariff-free imports for 15 years, using tariff-rate quotas and other safeguards.
“We are also supporting agricultural producers to increase their exports overseas, including to new markets in the Indo-Pacific” region, the British government said.
CHAMPIONS: President Lai congratulated the players’ outstanding performance, cheering them for marking a new milestone in the nation’s baseball history Taiwan on Sunday won their first Little League Baseball World Series (LLBWS) title in 29 years, as Taipei’s Dong Yuan Elementary School defeated a team from Las Vegas 7-0 in the championship game in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. It was Taiwan’s first championship in the annual tournament since 1996, ending a nearly three-decade drought. “It has been a very long time ... and we finally made it,” Taiwan manager Lai Min-nan (賴敏男) said after the game. Lai said he last managed a Dong Yuan team in at the South Williamsport in 2015, when they were eliminated after four games. “There is
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers have declared they survived recall votes to remove them from office today, although official results are still pending as the vote counting continues. Although final tallies from the Central Election Commission (CEC) are still pending, preliminary results indicate that the recall campaigns against all seven KMT lawmakers have fallen short. As of 6:10 pm, Taichung Legislators Yen Kuan-heng (顏寬恒) and Yang Chiung-ying (楊瓊瓔), Hsinchu County Legislator Lin Szu-ming (林思銘), Nantou County Legislator Ma Wen-chun (馬文君) and New Taipei City Legislator Lo Ming-tsai (羅明才) had all announced they
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) yesterday visited Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), as the chipmaker prepares for volume production of Nvidia’s next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) chips. It was Huang’s third trip to Taiwan this year, indicating that Nvidia’s supply chain is deeply connected to Taiwan. Its partners also include packager Siliconware Precision Industries Co (矽品精密) and server makers Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and Quanta Computer Inc (廣達). “My main purpose is to visit TSMC,” Huang said yesterday. “As you know, we have next-generation architecture called Rubin. Rubin is very advanced. We have now taped out six brand new
POWER PLANT POLL: The TPP said the number of ‘yes’ votes showed that the energy policy should be corrected, and the KMT said the result was a win for the people’s voice The government does not rule out advanced nuclear energy generation if it meets the government’s three prerequisites, President William Lai (賴清德) said last night after the number of votes in favor of restarting a nuclear power plant outnumbered the “no” votes in a referendum yesterday. The referendum failed to pass, despite getting more “yes” votes, as the Referendum Act (公民投票法) states that the vote would only pass if the votes in favor account for more than one-fourth of the total number of eligible voters and outnumber the opposing votes. Yesterday’s referendum question was: “Do you agree that the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant
RSS