United States Fact Sheet on AUSFTA

WASHINGTON - Feb 8/04 - SNS -- Information contained in the U.S. fact sheet on the Australia United States free trade agreement (AUSFTA) signed today adds details to some of the information provided by the Australian government and makes it clear Australia's marketing boards may not be able to continue doing business as usual.

The fact sheet released by the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) states, "In response to U.S. concerns about Australia’s agricultural state trading enterprises, Australia committed to working with the U.S. in the ongoing WTO negotiations on agriculture to develop export competition disciplines that eliminate restrictions on the right of entities to export."

This reveals a somewhat different spin than given by the Australian government, whose fact sheet states, "Australia's single-desk arrangements for marketing Australian commodities to the world, such as for sugar, rice, wheat and barley, have been preserved."

Looking at the remainder of the agreement, the USTR notes that because Australian tariffs are higher than U.S. average tariffs, American firms today pay 10 times as much in total annual import tariffs to Australia as the U.S. collects from Australian imports. The U.S.-Australia FTA will eliminate this disparity.

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