The China - Australian FTA great benefits from lobster town
Robe where is a small town in South Australia is called lobster town by ethnic Chinese. There are 1400 ton lobsters cached per year and 90% were exported to China.
The mayor of Robe, Peter Leslie said:”With the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement, the business between China and Robe is becoming more and more intense. Robe is welcoming to Chinese investors and tourists and hopes to usher in more development opportunities.
According to the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement, the tariff of all seafood from AU will be zero on 1st Jan 2019. On that time, the prices of Australian seafood will be cheaper.
The Minister for Trade and Investment, Steven Ciobo said on 19th, China-Australia FTA has produced the expected results.
The China-AustraliaFTA gives Australian exporters a lot of advantages, especially in the food and services sector, where Australia has seen tremendous business opportunities.
According to Australian statistics, the first three quarters of 2016, a variety of Australian products exported to China due to the tariff cuts.
The past year, Australian grape exported to China increased six-fold, reaching 120 million Australian dollars (1 Australian dollar about 5.1 yuan). Medication exported to China increased 90% to $ 523 million.Over the same period, milk exported to China increased 80% to 127 million Australian dollars; bottled wine exported to China grew 40% to 3.09 billion Australian dollars; Fresh navel orange exported to China increased 55% to 51 million Australian dollars; Cheese exported to China grew 28% to 33 million Australian dollars.
On 1st 2017, according to the China-Australia FTA, the two countries will start a third round of tariff reduction.This means that the tariff of Australia's wine, drugs, nuts, ice cream, seafood will a half lower than the major competitors of France, the United States and Canada.And the import tariff of tuna, Arctic shrimp, cranberry and other characteristics will be canceled.
In addition to trade, investment got benefit from China-Australia FTA.Under the China-Australia FTA, the Australian Government's raised the threshold for the exemption of private investment in China which is from A $ 248 million to about A $ 1 billion. This means that many small and medium Chinese investors no longer needed to face cumbersome review process.
The data from Chinese Embassy in Australia shows that the first three quarters of this year, China directly invested year on year growth 73.3% and more than 10 large-scale projects was more than 10 billion Australian dollars.
The Professor Hans Hendricksch of the University of Sydney said that the Sino-Australian FTA had a strong psychological effect and makes investors more at ease, more confidence.
Speaking of confidence, the farmer Bernard Wright wanted to speak. His family has an 800-hectare farm near Canberra, holding 2,200 Merino sheep and more than 200 beef cattle. Over the past year, 75 percent of Merino wool was exported to China.
Wright family have a big confidence in the Chinese market. His son has begun to grow grapes in the farm and will be expected their wine to China after two or three years.