Proactive trade diplomacy crucial for agricultural exports

The Federal Government is trying to resolve trade disputes with China, but they seem likely to continue. What does this mean for the industry?

Shelved: China’s restriction on Australian wine has hurt the industry here. Picture: Endeavour Drinks

THERE are three principles to the approach that I’m going to take (as Trade Minister) and have been taking: it’s going to be a very proactive, it’s going to be a very principled, and also where necessary, patient.

Proactive is an absolute key. We’ve got to continue to build on the preferential access that we get for our agricultural exports around the world.

That’s why the EU and UK free trade agreements are absolutely paramount and trying to get an outcome on those agreements this year is going to be incredibly important.

We’ve also got to be principled.

We’ve got to be doing everything we can to get good agricultural outcomes on those UK and EU agreements.

We want to see access whether it be for sheepmeat, beef, dairy, sugar, or rice.

The COVID pandemic has seen a nearly 50 per cent drop in global investment.

Making sure we can get investment increasing to pre-COVID levels is critically important.

Then, of course, there’s our relationship with China.

Through the pandemic we’ve been able to maintain the relationship with China in terms of trade of goods and services, but obviously we’ve got some specific trade disputes we’re still trying to work through.

We will need patience to resolve these outcomes.

I’ve written to my counterparts setting out the complementarity between our two economies, and said from an Australian Government point of view we want to see the economic relationship continue.

I’m still waiting for a response to that letter, and once again I’ll wait patiently for that.

At this stage there doesn’t seem like we will get a response in the near future.

Which means these trade disputes, which are having a real impact, are likely to continue.

It is a complex trading environment that we now find ourselves in.

The Indo-Pacific, the geostrategic climate has changed and is a lot more complex.

Synergies between countries’ strategic outlook and their economic outlook are becoming more intertwined.

As we navigate our region we must make sure our trade diplomacy is as active as it’s ever been in our history.

● Dan Tehan is federal Trade, Tourism and Investment Minister. This is an edited extract of his address to The Weekly Times’ VirtuAg webinar last week

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