UK to ratify free trade agreement with Australia by end of March - High Commissioner
UrduPoint | 8 March 2023
UK to ratify free trade agreement with Australia by end of March - High Commissioner
(UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 08th March, 2023) The United Kingdom will ratify the post-Brexit free trade agreement with Australia by the end of March, UK High Commissioner to Australia Victoria Treadell said on Wednesday.
The deal is likely to return to the House of Commons from the House of Lords by March 12-13 where it would need another two-three weeks for consideration and ultimate vote on ratification, according to the diplomat.
"The moment that is done ’because you beat us to it at the end of your last sitting week of the last Calendar year’ if both countries having completed our parliamentary processes, it should come into effect pretty soon afterwards," Treadell said, referring to the fact that the Australian parliament had already ratified the agreement last November.
The free trade agreement between the two countries was signed in December 2021.
The deal is aimed at removing tariffs and harmonizing rules and standards on trade between the UK and Australia. It is one of the UK’s first new trade agreements reached with an international partner after the country left the European Union.
Some UK officials, including George Eustice, a former environment minister, have criticized the agreement, saying that it is one-sided and gives too much freedom to Australian businesses in the UK for "far too little in return."
The UK hopes that the trade deal with Australia will help its bid to eventually join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, a major free-trade bloc made up of Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.
