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Australia

Rules of origin: US, Thai FTA’s ’most restrictive’
22-Dec-2004 News.com.au
An Australian Productivity Commission report into trade and assistance reviews found conditions attached to the free trade agreements signed with the United States and Thailand would be more restrictive than similar deals.
Gvt procurement: FTA provides lucrative contracts for Australian businesses
16-Dec-2004 PM
Australian businesses are preparing for an assault on the $200 billion US Government procurement market when the US-Australia FTA takes effect in just over a fortnight.
Net giants seek to change FTA rules
6-Dec-2004 The Australian
Australia’s largest internet service providers have made an 11th-hour bid to amend the free trade agreement with the US, claiming it would expose them to an avalanche of litigation.
SPS issues and free trade agreements
25-Nov-2004
While the main US goal on agriculture in many FTA negotiations often is to secure non-SPS related concessions such as lower tariffs, the foreign partners often see the FTA as an opportunity to resolve outstanding SPS issues with the US as well as seek accelerated new market access to the US for their animal and plant products.
Milking Thailand: The Thai-Australia Free Trade Agreement
18-Nov-2004 Focus on the Global South
In Thailand, the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) debates were heated. Farmers and critics claim that Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s government sold out small farmers to their own big business interests. They took to the streets in protest while Thaksin lambasted them and obscured negotiation details.
Senate debate begins on Thai FTA deal
18-Nov-2004
Debate has begun in the Senate on laws enabling the Thailand-Australia Free Trade Agreement to take effect from next year.
FTA to create opportunities: Zoellick
18-Nov-2004
The free trade agreement (FTA) between Australia and the United States would create real economic opportunities in both countries for businesses, farmers, and workers, US trade representative Robert Zoellick said.
Trading in food safety? The impact of trade agreements on quarantine in Australia
12-Nov-2004 The Australia Institute
Australia has always enjoyed rigorous national food standards that were applied equally to both domestically produced and imported food. The capacity to maintain and apply these standards, however, is now being undermined by international trade agreements and procedures for settling trade disputes with a result that challenges to public health are being significantly increased.
Copyright inquiry could save FTA
8-Nov-2004
An inquiry into computer and television piracy could break the impasse threatening to delay the start of the free trade deal with the US.
Key free-trade deal deadline missed
5-Nov-2004
Australia and the United States have missed a key deadline for their free trade agreement but Australian Trade Minister Mark Vaile remains confident the deal will start as planned on January 1.
T Shinawatra, Aust partner await FTA
5-Nov-2004 The Nation
T Shinawatra Thai Silk (Thailand) Co Ltd, a family business of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, is negotiating with an Australian fashion designer to form a joint venture that benefits from low import tariffs under the Thai-Australia free-trade agreement.
Schieffer aims to fix FTA impasse
4-Nov-2004
The United States ambassador to Australia has left for Washington in a final bid to work through details holding up the free trade agreement (FTA) between the two countries.
Australia optimistic about free trade pact with China
2-Nov-2004 Channel News Asia
Australian Trade Minister Mark Vaile said negotiating an FTA with China would be "arguably more important" than the Australia-US free trade deal recently concluded and due to come into operation on January 1.
US concern poses threat to free trade deal
29-Oct-2004
The United States’ continuing concern about Australian laws is threatening to delay the countries’ free-trade agreement.
Australia may bow to pressure from US drug firms on FTA
22-Oct-2004 Asia Pulse
Prime Minister John Howard may bow to a concerted campaign by American drug companies against the amendments that the government was forced into accepting upon pressure from the Labor Party.
Fast track Australian FTA with China: farmers
13-Oct-2004 AAP
Australian grain growers, who stood to gain billions of dollars in new trade targeting the Chinese food and livestock sectors, are demanding that the federal government fast track a free trade deal with China.
Strange article lurking at back of FTA could bring nasty surprise
4-Oct-2004 Australia National University (ANU)
HIDDEN at the back of the 1000 page Australia-US Free Trade Agreement, is a strange article, numbered 21.2(c). Usually, in a legal document such as a treaty, dispute proceedings only arise if a party has breached a formal obligation in the text.
Bilateral & regional negotiations on agriculture: competitive liberalization or protectionist confusion?
4-Oct-2004 FQAEA
Synoptic review of what is happening with US trade talks on agriculture, outside the WTO
Thai dairy farmers make U-turn on FTA plan
28-Sep-2004 Bangkok Post
Key dairy farmers are making a U-turn in their FTA strategy and are now seeking financial, technical and marketing assistance from the big players Australia and New Zealand.
Leaders face challenge on trade threat to PBS
27-Sep-2004
Twenty leading medical and legal experts, and seven peak health and community services organisations, will send today an open letter to John Howard and Mark Latham demanding changes to the free trade agreement with the US before the agreement is ratified in late October.