UK announces post-Brexit trade deal with New Zealand

After Australia and Japan, the United Kingdom on Wednesday announced a post-Brexit trade agreement with New Zealand, bolstering its ambition to incorporate the Trans-Pacific Trade Treaty.

Britain’s Department of Foreign Trade said in a statement that the agreement came into effect on Wednesday during a video call between British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his New Zealand counterpart Jacinda Ardern.

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“This is an excellent trade agreement for the United Kingdom, which reinforces our longstanding friendship with New Zealand and strengthens our relationship with the Indo-Pacific region,” Boris Johnson said in the statement.

Agreement denounced by the labor opposition

The agreement reached on Wednesday with New Zealand “will reduce red tape for businesses, end tariffs on British exports and create new opportunities for technology and services companies,” according to the British government, which says trade with Wellington was 2.3 billion pounds last year.

But Labor opposition denounced the agreement, which benefits “only the big corporations who run meat and dairy farms in New Zealand” at the expense of British farmers.

Labour’s international trade officer, Emily Thornberry, responded in a statement: “For UK jobs, growth and exports, this agreement is yet another fiasco.”

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Double the trade agreements

The UK hopes the deal will help open the doors to the Trans-Pacific Free Trade Partnership (CPTPP), “a free trade area of ​​11 countries with a combined GDP of $8,400 billion in 2020,” the government statement said.

Signed in particular by New Zealand, Australia, Canada and Japan, it is the most important free trade agreement in the region. The UK formally applied to join it last February.

Since leaving the European Union, which became a reality on January 1, London has concluded trade agreements with the European Union, Japan and Australia, as well as with non-EU European countries Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein.

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In early October, the country officially started negotiations for a free trade agreement with the six Arab Gulf states and is also seeking to strengthen its trade relations with the United States, without being able to obtain a promise from Washington at the present time.