Trade Minister Andrew Robb pushes for FTAs with China, Japan and SKorea

TRADE Minister Andrew Robb says it is important to pursue and complete free-trade agreements with China, Japan and South Korea.

Robb kicks goals in three-way drive for FTAs

TRADE and Investment Minister Andrew Robb says his week-long visit to Australia's three biggest markets -- China, Japan and South Korea -- has been "fast and furious, but very productive, I hope".

He has been given both a negotiating mandate from the cabinet for free-trade agreements with the three countries and a 12-month deadline from Tony Abbott to conclude them all.

"There have been some very good signals so far," he said in Beijing after meeting his counterparts and other economic decision-makers in the three countries.

While in Japan, he also met the reformist Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

The details remain complex, with Australia alone having 11,500 tariff lines with its global trading partners to consider.

"Usually the negotiators end up with some real sticking points," he said, "and it is those which are my responsibility to negotiate with my counterparts."

The three FTAs had remained unresolved for years because of a lack of political will and the broader economic climate, he said.

"Now, though, there is a momentum which was not there a year ago, and we have to capitalise on that, we have to move as quickly as we can."

The drive to complete the FTAs began with the Prime Minister's meetings with the heads of the three governments, and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop's meetings with her counterparts, with Mr Robb also meeting the trade ministers.

"And we are witnessing, more broadly around the world, a loss of confidence in the ability of the interventionist approach of the last few years to deliver adequate levels of sustainable growth, given the malaise it is in."

The leaders he had spoken to in North Asia had a focus instead on "deregulation, more market focus, and greater openness".

There was a mood now "to try trade and investment, not as a total solution but as a way to drive growth. There appears to be a lot more political will" in this direction, with new leaders in all three countries -- as well as in Australia.

"Timing is everything," he said. "If you feel the mood is there, you've got to go at it hard. If you allow it to drag on and on, people will get distracted and it will eventually disappear."

A primary purpose of trade agreements "is in many cases to force reform within economies".

The perceived downsides of such reform can be presented as part of a package that brings the prospect of "a bigger overall return, because you're now conducting business across lots of sectors".

Greater market access would make reform more acceptable to people, he said.

"There will always be losers, and they will fight it. But you can often demonstrate there will be more winners."

The 1957 economic agreement with Japan, he said, was an example of such a deal. It had delivered "progressively greater and greater trade, and (led) to Japan becoming our biggest investor by a country mile from the region. And it's led to trust."

Mr Robb said an FTA "is a way to set up such a relationship for the next 50 years".

And, he said, "as long as FTAs are consistent with world trade agreement rules, then they become another brick in the wall towards a notional multilateral outcome".