National hosts trade forum for farmers - 25 May 2004

Tuesday, 25 May 2004

The Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement is a positive step forward and its benefits for Australian agriculture will continue to grow year by year after it comes into force. That was the broad consensus of opinion among panellists in the National Agricultural Trade Forum hosted by National Australia Bank last night.

The forum was a live panel discussion broadcast to an audience of around 1,500 farmers in National branches all over Australia. The program featured panellists including industry representatives and Trade Minister, Mark Vaile, and can be viewed on the National's website as a webcast.

Mr Vaile stressed the overall benefits to Australian industry and agriculture in particular, coming out of the Australia-US FTA and acknowledged that there were some disappointments for certain agricultural sectors.

Mr Vaile cited better market access for Australia's beef and dairy farmers and the protection of Australia's single desk exporting arrangements as examples of key successes in the deal for rural Australia.

"All in all, what we've achieved in this negotiation in terms of opening up markets in some critical areas is a very good outcome given that we've had to maintain a rock-solid position in some of our defensive issues," Mr Vaile said.

Mr Vaile also highlighted opportunities in other markets and said he would be accelerating the scoping study currently under way for a free trade agreement with China.

The outcome for beef and dairy industries featured in last night's discussion. John Keir, Joint CEO, Australia Meat Holdings said: "We think the fundamentals for beef are quite sound. We'd encourage people to continue herd rebuilding."

Representing dairy, Paul Kerr, Chief Operating Officer, Murray Goulburn Co-operative, said: "We're positive about the industry in the short-medium and long-term. There's plenty of opportunity out there in world markets so we're encouraging dairy farmers to consider restocking."

Tony Eyres, CEO of the Grain Growers Association said that the grain industry, which already enjoys substantially open access to the US, had to "dig a little deeper than beef and dairy" to find direct benefits in the Australia-US FTA, but that flow-on benefits are clear.

"As an industry we could be using the FTA as a catalyst to start thinking differently about how the industry operates on a domestic level," Mr Eyres said. "If there are large increases in beef and dairy, maybe we need to look at some longer-term relationships with those industries to be certain we can keep up the supply here."

The National's Chief Economist Alan Oster said that while the full benefits of the FTA would take a long time to realise, the agreement is "clearly positive from a macro point of view".

Other industry viewpoints were represented by farmers in National branches who phoned in their questions and comments for the panel, which also included Australia's Chief Negotiator for the Australia-US Free Trade Agreement, Stephen Deady.

The Forum can be viewed as a webcast on the Agribusiness page of the National's website: www.nab.com.au

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