The third round of Free Trade Agreement negotiations
with Australia took place between Monday 23 November and Friday 4
December.
During the two weeks, negotiators completed 46 discussions,
spanning the breadth of the Free Trade Agreement.
For every area, text was shared before the round. Both sides
continued to have detailed textual discussions, and negotiators
are now in the process of consolidating texts in several chapter
areas. These include digital, telecommunications, customs, rules
of origin, procurement, and cross-cutting provisions such as
dispute settlement. Discussions in these chapters indicated areas
of common understanding, where progress could be made.
We held detailed technical discussions on text in areas such as
investment, professional business services and financial
services, including on regulatory cooperation. Across all areas
of the Free Trade Agreement negotiation, we identified areas of
convergence and some areas of divergence. Both sides are
regularly engaging with domestic stakeholders to ensure our
respective proposals are informed by their views.
Both sides exchanged their initial goods market access offers
before the round. This exchange of goods market access offers is
an early milestone, and the speed at which this stage has been
reached demonstrates the momentum behind these negotiations.
Discussions on market access will continue in parallel with
discussions across the Free Trade Agreement.
During the negotiations, the Secretary of State for International
Trade had a call with Senator Simon Birmingham, and they agreed
on the need to maintain momentum ahead of the next round.
After this round we have agreed to a number of intersessional
discussions to ensure the pace is continued heading into the next
round.
Below is a summary list of those areas discussed in the round,
which continued to take place by video conference:
- Anti-Corruption
- Competition
- Customs and Trade Facilitation
- Development
- Digital/ e-commerce
- Environment & Clean Growth
- Financial Services
- Goods
- Good Regulatory Practices
- Government Procurement
- Innovation
- Investment
- Intellectual Property
- Labour
- Legal and Institutional provisions
- Telecommunications
- Trade Remedies
- Rules of Origin
- Services, including movement of natural persons, professional
business services, international maritime transport services and
delivery services
- Small and Medium-sized Enterprises
- State Owned Enterprises
- Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures
- State-to-State Dispute Settlement
- Technical Barriers to Trade
- Transparency
- Trade and Women’s Economic Empowerment
Any deal the UK Government agrees will be fair and balanced and
in the best interests of the whole of the UK. As we will in all
negotiations, we remain committed to upholding our high
environmental, labour, product and food safety, and animal
welfare standards in our trade agreement with Australia, as well
as protecting the National Health Service (NHS).
