April 15, 2010

New Zealand farmers encouraged by US free trade talk

Federated Farmers has commended New Zealand Prime Minister, John Key for pushing free trade in his talks with the US vice-president, Joe Biden and the agriculture secretary, Tom Vilsack.

"It seems like the prime minister is on the same page as Federated Farmers on the matter of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP)," says Don Nicolson, president of Federated Farmers.

Earlier, the NZ farmers group sent a letter to 30 US senators, inviting them to attend a conference in Invercargill from 23-25 June and to see how farming is done in the country. 

During the talk, the prime minister had suggested that TPP, far from hindering US agriculture exports, would allow both countries to work together.

TPP is a multilateral free trade agreement Brunei, Chile, New Zealand and Singapore with the aim of eliminating 90% of all tariffs between member countries by 2006 and reducing all trade tariffs to zero by the year 2015. It covers clauses ranging from trade in goods, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, technical barriers to trade to government procurement and competition policy.